


Rambling Wrecks

by patchfire, raving_liberal



Series: Story of Three Boys [90]
Category: College Football RPF, Glee
Genre: College, Easter Eggs, Eating Disorders, Fanfiction Once-Removed, Gen, Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets Football, M/M, Mental Health Issues, References to Suicide, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-16
Updated: 2013-02-15
Packaged: 2017-11-12 06:09:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 213,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/487588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patchfire/pseuds/patchfire, https://archiveofourown.org/users/raving_liberal/pseuds/raving_liberal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everybody's broken in different ways, and sometimes it just takes time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. June 2012

**Author's Note:**

> Once upon a time, we started writing a story about three boys, but as their story got bigger, their world got bigger, too. It needed more people in it, and those people had their own little lives and their own little stories, too. 
> 
> Here are some of those people and some of their stories.

**Wednesday, June 27th, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

Somehow, Casey makes it through the rest of his day without setting himself on fire or spilling espresso on anyone. It’s good that he’s been doing this for a while now, because he’s able to go on autopilot, measuring and mixing without having to turn on any meaningful part of his brain. Puck doesn’t try to talk to him, and Miles sits at the table in the back with his phone and his coffee, and while that’s weird, it’s also comforting.

When Casey came in to work, Miles told him, “I’ve got you, Cherry,” and it’s nice, to not have to feel as completely alone as Casey thought he would feel today. Somebody’s got him. It doesn’t make it hurt any less, but at least he’s not hurting all by himself, not yet anyway, and he can keep himself together, and he can make coffee, and he can get through the end of this shift.

Neither Miles nor Puck says anything when Casey goes out to sit in the Lemon for his fifteen minute break, and neither of them says anything about his wet eyes and red face when he comes back in, though Miles does give Casey another hug. Casey lets himself relax into the hug for a moment before he pulls away to go back behind the counter again. When things slow down in the store just after noon, Casey does a quick search on his phone, texting a business name and address to David. Even in Atlanta, David should have a good place to find a good doughnut, maybe even one of those weird raspberry danishes.

Miles stays at the Starbucks until the end of Casey’s shift, buying another coffee or a muffin or something any time Puck starts to give Miles a look like he might want to consider being someplace that _isn’t_ the Starbucks. Puck leaves at two, though, so Miles moves over to the counter and talks to Casey—more like _at_ Casey, since Miles doesn’t seem to require any specific response and Casey doesn’t feel like giving much of one—for the last hour.

“You give me a call after your swimming class, Cherry?” Miles asks, as the two of them walk out to their cars.

“Miles,” Casey sighs, but not with a lot of force behind it. “It’s not a class. It’s practice. I already know how to swim.”

“Course you do,” Miles says, nodding his head in agreement. “So, give me a call after your swimming class practice, right?”

“ _Miles!_ ”

“I’m just messing with you, Cherry. I know you know how to swim,” Miles says. “Come here.” Casey goes over to Miles, and lets himself be enfolded into another hug. “You’re gonna be just fine, Cherry. You hear me? Everything’s gonna be just fine.”

Casey nods against Miles’ shoulder, not because he agrees with him or believes it’s ever going to be just fine, but because he wishes that it would be. “Thanks, Miles,” he says, as he disentangles himself and takes a step towards the Lemon. “I’ll call you later.”

“Yeah, you’d better, or I’ll have them put out an APB on you!” Miles calls out as he climbs into his little red car.

That does make Casey laugh a little as he sits down in the Lemon’s driver’s seat, though the laughter fades before Casey even makes it out of the St. Rita’s parking lot. He stalls out twice on the way to the pool, something he hasn’t done in at least a month, and he’s frustrated and grumbling under his breath to himself by the time he’s finally gathering up his bag to walk in.

He’s a little early, and normally, if he were that early, he’d do a few warm-up laps before anybody else got there, but today he just can’t muster up the energy. He drinks a bottle of water and sits on the edge of the pool, dangling his feet into the water of the open lane on the far side, and wishes it were yesterday, or a month ago, or two years from now.

After another fifteen minutes pass, the rest of the team and Coach Brum arrive, so Casey puts on his best smile and says hi to everyone in his liar’s voice. He gives Brandon the weird pre-workout Gatorade pouch things that Coach Beiste— _Aunt Shannon_ —keeps putting in his bag, and Brandon fist bumps him. It should feel nice to be included, part of a team, but mostly it doesn’t feel like anything.

Casey does his swims, and he knows in the moment his time is bad. He doesn’t have any energy, and he honestly doesn’t even care he doesn’t have any energy. He does the best he can, but it’s not very good, and when he climbs out of the pool, Coach Brum looks at him all concerned. Casey gives one of his Powerbars to Jason and the other one to Thomas, and they declare him to be “awesome” and tell him “thanks, dude”.

When practice is over, before dryland, Coach Brum says, “Hey, Casey, stay after a minute, will you?”

Everybody else slowly filters out of the building after dryland, and Casey lags behind, waiting. Once they’re all gone, Coach Brum waves him over.

“Everything okay with you?” Coach Brum asks him. “Those weren’t your usual times out there today.”

Casey shrugs. “Yeah, I’m fine. I was up early and I worked today.”

“Anything else going on with you?” Coach asks him, like some kind of psychic mindreader–Coach.

“My, um. Friend. David. He left for college today,” Casey says, his voice steady, like it’s the most normal thing in the world for people to do, just pack up and drive out of your life, hundreds of miles away. And it is, he supposes. It _is_ normal for people to go, just like that, here with you one moment, and then gone another.

Coach Brum nods like he understands, though how he could understand that, Casey isn’t sure. “Well, get some rest tonight, okay?” Coach says, and Casey nods at him like that’s something that could actually happen, even though it isn’t.

Casey changes into his dry clothes and checks his phone, because he should be hearing from David soon, might even have a voicemail he can listen to. There isn’t a voicemail, but he does have a long—for David, especially—text:

_Made it to the parking deck, at least. Pretty sure that there was a wreck farther down on the freeway. All EIGHT lanes of traffic were stop-and-go. Now to find out what my room is, I guess. I'll call later after you finish practice._

Casey can’t even imagine what eight lanes of traffic would look like, though he supposes he could look could at Google Maps to see. He won’t, though. The idea of even looking at those streets right now makes him feel kind of sick, so instead he drinks his second bottle of water, and goes out to sit in the Lemon for a while, mustering the energy to drive back to Shannon and Monty’s house. They’ll want to talk about it, and he most definitely does not.

 

**Wednesday: June 27th, 2012: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

The first thing Dave wonders is where the wreck is. He must have missed seeing it on the other side while he was navigating all the ramps and exits, but there's obviously one or all eight lanes of traffic wouldn't be stopped. Dave thinks it's eight lanes, anyway. He's really not sure. It's definitely more than two or three, though. 

It takes longer to exit the interstate than he expects, too, but eventually he finds his way to the parking deck, as directed, puts the temporary permit in his window, and climbs out of the truck. The first few days, the last email sent out warned all of them, will be hectic: orientation to the residence hall, orientation to the workout facilities, academic advising with the athletic staff, then going through orientation on Sunday and Monday. At this point, Dave will settle for finding the right place to get a key for his room. 

He stops behind his truck and pulls out his phone, trying to decide if he really should call, like he said, or if maybe it'd be easier on both of them if he just texts Casey. Casey's in the middle of swim practice, as it is, and Dave has no idea how busy he'll be by the time Casey's done. He'll try to call, but he doesn't know what he's supposed to be doing, and fuck. He doesn't want Casey to worry that he didn't make it. He's replayed the morning a thousand times in his head as he drove, and he's still not sure what other things he could have said. He doesn't want to call and leave a voicemail full of pauses and uncertainty. He knows it's the coward's way out to send a text, but he takes it, regardless. 

_Made it to the parking deck, at least. Pretty sure that there was a wreck farther down on the freeway. All EIGHT lanes of traffic were stop-and-go. Now to find out what my room is, I guess. I'll call later after you finish practice._

Dave slides his phone back in his pocket, and heads towards the actual dorm buildings. There's a table in the courtyard, luckily, and an overly–enthusiastic woman checks him in. "You're in 315B, North Avenue South," she tells him, smiling. "Looks like two of your dorm-mates are already here. Because your meal plans don't officially activate until Tuesday morning, we'll be serving a buffet for dinner tonight through Saturday here in the courtyard. We'll talk more about other meal locations." She frowns briefly. "But drink lots of water! We're going to set some records this weekend."

"Right," Dave answers, nodding almost out of habit. "Uh, thanks." He takes a map and a folder of information and heads in the direction she points, taking an elevator to the third floor before finding 315. He unlocks the door and finds himself in a kitchen that opens into a living room, and two guys are sitting in the living room with a deck of cards. 

"Hey!" One of them says with a huge grin. "You Dave or Danny?"

"Dave," Dave manages to get out, stepping through the kitchen. "Dave Karofsky."

"Tyler Davis. Ty."

“Cooper. Anthony Cooper. If you call me anything but Coop, we’re gonna have some problems.”

“Okay. Coop.” Dave smiles at both of them. “So we’re waiting on a Danny?”

“Speak for yourself, man,” Coop drawls. “I’m waiting for the supermodels. They show up before this Danny character, I’m gonna let ’em have his room.”

“Well… maybe that’s what caused the wreck out there?” Dave says. 

“Was there a wreck?” Ty asks. “Man, people drive like the temperature outside makes a difference.”

“I guess so. Traffic was bad enough.”

“Where are you from, anyway?” Coop asks. “’Cause that’s just Atlanta. That’s not a wreck.”

Dave narrows his eyes, trying to decide if Coop’s kidding, but he looks pretty serious about it. “Ohio,” Dave says. “Lima, Ohio. Straight up 75.”

“Ohio. I’ve never been to Ohio.” Ty shrugs. “Guess you got down here in time for hot weather, anyway.”

“Lima, Ohio,” Coop repeats. “That doesn’t even sound like a real place. Whatcha got going for you up in Lima, Ohio?”

Dave winces mentally, thinking about Casey, but he shakes his head. “Do I look like I’m still _in_ Ohio?” he finally responds. 

“Sure as hell don’t,” Coop agrees. “Well, hope you packed your sunscreen, man. Welcome to Atlanta in the summertime.”

 

**Wednesday, June 27th, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

Casey’s phone beeps to indicate an incoming call, and a quick glance shows that it’s David, so Casey says, “I’ve got to go. It’s David,” and ends the call with Miles without saying anything else. “Hi!” he says, once he’s switched to David’s call.

“Hey,” David replies. “Sorry, it’s later than I thought it would be. We had to listen to a fifteen minute talk about food, where they read the information on the sheet of paper we already had.”

“Oh, that sounds terrible, I’m sorry,” Casey says. Talking about food for fifteen minutes sounds terrible in general, but being read to off a paper sounds worse. “How, um. Your drive? How was it?”

“Pretty easy, until I got in the city. There’s so much traffic. I thought it was a wreck but one of my roommates said no, that’s just Atlanta traffic, so I don’t know.” David sighs. “But yeah, I mean. Straight down 75.”

“Are they nice? The roommates, I mean. Not the traffic.”

“Yeah, I haven’t met Danny yet. His parents are driving him and they had car trouble or something, the check-in lady told us. The other two are Coop and Tyler, they’re both from somewhere near Atlanta.” There’s a brief pause before David continues. “I can’t remember where, though, for either of them.”

“Oh. Well, that’s probably good. They probably know where things are, so, um... So that’s good,” Casey says. He winces at himself, because this is probably the dumbest a person could possibly ever sounds on the phone, ever. 

“Yeah, maybe so,” David agrees. 

“So, it’s, um. Probably really hot down there, huh?”

“Yeah, supposed to break a record or something, soon; everyone keeps saying ‘drink a lot of water!’ every other sentence, practically. But then they tell us we have outdoor workouts.” He snorts. “Kinda inconsistent.”

“Do they have a pool? You should go swimming. That would be, um. Cooler, probably. Than not.” Casey puts his forehead down on the steering wheel and tells himself to just stop talking before he gets any dumber.

“Yeah, I think we get a tour or something tomorrow, and schedules of when we can go where. I don’t know, it’s all kinda overwhelming right now.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I bet it is,” Casey says. It’s kind of overwhelming for him, too, and he isn’t the one who had to go anywhere new. “A schedule’s good, though. At least you know where you’re supposed to be, so you know, that’s... That’s good.”

“Yeah. I, uh. I’ll try to figure out some kind of routine, you know. And let you know when I’m going to be free. If there’s a set time most days.”

“I can be free anytime, so. You know. Just anytime, okay?” Casey says. “If you want to talk or anything like that, anytime is fine. Or tell me when, and I can call then. Or text you. Whichever one.” He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, so David can’t hear it shaking. “I’m… It’s good you made it there safely, David.”

“Yeah, I’ll do that,” David says. “Definitely.”

“I should, um. I guess you probably need to…" Casey trails off. There isn’t anything else he can say without veering into the territory of things that might make David feel bad, and he doesn’t want David to feel bad about going to college. He wants David to be happy and do a great job, and not have to worry about him. 

“Yeah, there’s some kind of, I don’t know. Get–to–know–you thing in a little while. Hopefully it’s not that one with the movie title on your back. I hate that one.”

Casey has no idea what that get–to–know–you thing with a movie title might entail, so he just says, “Yes, me too.”

“So, uh. I’ll talk to you sometime tomorrow, anyway.”

“Okay, David,” Casey says softly. “Have a good time at the thing. I hope there’s no movie titles.”

David half-heartedly chuckles. “Yeah. Thanks. Bye, Case.”

“Bye, David,” Casey says. He keeps the phone to his ear until David ends the call, and then he sets it down on the Lemon’s passenger seat, folds his arms around the steering wheel, and takes long, deep breaths. He has to drive back to Shannon and Monty’s now, and make it into his room without any kind of conversation, and call Miles back. Those are all the things he has to do right now, and crying in the pool parking lot is not on the list. 

 

**Thursday, June 28th, 2012: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Ty complaining is the first thing Dave hears when he steps out of his room after his first night in the dorm. "I can't believe we had to report yesterday and then they don't have anything scheduled for us until eleven."

"And no breakfast, either," Dave points out. "Which reminds me." He pulls out his phone and looks at the website Casey sent the night before. "Want to go check out this doughnut place?"

Ty's eyes light up. "Oh, yeah. Sounds good. We'll let lazybones and late–arriver stay here."

Dave snorts. "Aw, it's not Danny's fault his parents’ car broke down. Twice."

"Yeah, I know. But I think it is Coop's fault he's sleeping in."

"Yeah, that's probably true."

Dave grabs his wallet and waits for Ty to do the same, and after they consult the website, an online map, and a campus map, they decide to drive to the doughnut shop. 

"We'll be nice and get a frosted croissant for the other two," Ty decides, surveying the selection in Sublime Doughnuts. "But me, I'm getting this strawberry ’n’ cream one. Ooh, and nutella!"

"Yeah, I'm gonna try the two with raspberry." Dave pays for his two doughnuts and two of the croissants, and then Ty does the same before they drive back to the dorm. 

When they get back, Danny and Coop are both awake, slumped on the living area couch and staring at the blank wall where they’ll get a television eventually. Coop casts a bleary–eyed look back in their direction, grimacing.

“How’d we get paired up with a couple of morning people?” he grumbles. 

“Hey, are those doughnuts?” Danny asks, sounding far less grumpy. “Doughnuts!”

“Got croissants for you two. Next time you have to be awake if you want to pick your own,” Ty answers, setting the box down. “Didn’t you see the schedule for the rest of the month?”

“I didn’t,” Dave admits. 

“The one that says we’ve gotta get up at ass o’clock in the morning?” Coop asks. “Naw, I ignored that one.”

“Did you look at all your papers or not?” Ty asks Dave, grinning. “What, you think you’re special and don’t have to read them?”

“Like cereal,” Danny says. “Special K.”

“Yeah, Special K here’s from Ohio, he doesn’t have to read his papers,” Coop agrees. 

Dave snorts and picks up one of his doughnuts. “I can give your croissants to Danny, you know.”

“I thought we were bonding,” Coop says. 

“I always bond by stealing food.” Dave shrugs. “Don’t you?”

“I can’t bond without a croissant, so. No, I guess.”

“You two are kinda strange,” Danny says. “But at least things’ll be interesting around here.”

Ty laughs. “Those are the truest words spoken all day.”

“There’s nothing strange about me,” Coop protests. “I’m just a red-blooded all-American boy who happens to like a pastry. That’s perfectly normal. Everybody likes a pastry.”

“Except people with celiac disease,” Ty says, grinning widely. “They might like ’em, I mean, but they can’t eat ’em.”

“I don’t even know what that means.” Danny shakes his head. “What about you, Special K?”

“Something about wheat.” Dave shrugs. “But at least none of us have to worry about it.”

“Nope. We just have to worry about getting oriented.” Ty grins. “I call dibs on the left-hand shower.”

 

**Friday, June 29th, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

The doorbell rings at 8:30, which is weird, and neither Shannon nor Monty makes a move away from their coffee and papers, which is even weirder. When the bell rings a second time, Casey says, "I'll get it, I guess." Shannon makes a small sound of acknowledgment, and Monty looks like he's smiling behind his paper, but that's all the response Casey gets.

He didn't expect to see Miles Brown at 8:30 on a Friday morning, but Miles can sometimes be unpredictable that way. Before Casey can even say hi, though, Miles has him by the arm, hauling him out to where Miles’ car is parked in the driveway.

"Cherry," Miles says, his voice as serious as Casey has ever heard it. "I need your help for a critical mission."

"Um. I think I'm supposed to ask Shannon or Monty before I disappear on any critical missions," Casey says, looking back at the front door, which Miles has just swung closed behind them. Really, today was supposed to be his day for wallowing in self pity, at least until swim practice at 3:30. He thought surely he could have one day, at least, for that; apparently not.

Miles just looks at him like he's crazy. "Cherry, you think I'd do anything to get on Coach's bad side with the season starting up soon?" He shakes his head. "Nah, I called last night and ran it by ’em. You're free until your swim classes start."

"Swim _practice_ , Miles."

"Right, right. I know that!" Miles waves his hand dismissively as the two of them take a seat in the Versa. "Now, what you see here today, you are to speak of to nobody, you understand?"

"Where are we going?" Casey asks. "I'm not sure I want to—"

"Nobody, Cherry!" Miles repeats, and he seems so very serious about it that Casey just nods in response, wide-eyed. When Miles pulls into the parking lot of Brown's Flowers a few minutes later, though, Casey laughs.

"Miles, everybody knows your parents own the florist," he says. "It's right there on the sign. Brown's Flowers. Anyway, you, um, kind of actually talk about it sometimes."

Miles glares at him, and Casey feels like he should probably act more impressed or intimidated than he actually is, but he hadn't even had a second cup of coffee before Miles picked him up a few minutes ago. Miles will have to settle for Casey looking confused, instead.

When they walk inside, a friendly–looking older woman behind the counter looks up and smiles at them. "Oh, there you are, Miles! First batch is back on the table, whenever you're ready for them."

"Thanks, Ms. Betty," Miles says, with that big charming smile he has.

"Miles? Do you, um. Work here?" Casey asks. "Is that the big secret?"

"Yeah, I do, and no, it's not, but don't go spreading that around, either," Miles warns him. "This isn't one bit of their business."

Casey's starting to wonder if the Browns' florist shop isn't maybe a front for the mafia or a casino or something even worse, because Miles is acting awfully weird about all of this, when he actually sees the table in the back. It's a long cafeteria–style table, covered in boxes of different types of flowers, all roughly similar in color, and several large rolls of green and silver ribbon.

"Miles!" Casey says, trying to keep the laughter out of his voice. "Do you _assemble_ the flower bunches?"

"They're called bouquets, and shut that little mouth of yours before it gets you in trouble," Miles says. "More trouble, anyway."

"More trouble than what?"

"Never you mind about that! I've got a crisis scenario here, and I need your help to get all of this done by pickup today at 2!" Miles says, waving his hand over the table.

“But… why do you need _me_? I don’t have any, um. Flower experience. What about Alicia or somebody?”

“Well, see, it’s like this, Cherry,” Miles says, heaving a big sigh as he moves towards the table. “This order, it wasn’t supposed to get picked up until later, like seven, eight o’clock, but then last night my dad gets a call from the bride, and she’s all kinds of freaking out, decides she needs these flowers by two. And my dad, well, he doesn’t know how to say no.” Miles grins at Casey and raises his eyebrows. “Guess you can say that’s a family trait.”

“So, crazy bride. Got it,” Casey says. It’s better, sometimes, to just pretend he doesn’t know what Miles is talking about when he’s talking like that. It just encourages him.

When Miles realizes he’s not going to get a laugh or a blush or any indication of shock out of Casey, he drops his eyebrows and shakes his head. “Anyway, Ma and Alicia already had all this paperwork they were going to go over, at the insurance agency today, and they couldn’t put it off, just because some bride gets all freaked out about a bunch of flowers, right?”

“Right?” Casey echoes.

“Exactly right,” Miles says, nodding. “So, instead, here’s poor Miles Brown, gonna be stuck in the florist at before nine in the morning on a Friday, all by his lonesome.”

“What about her?” Casey asks, gesturing towards the front.

“Oh, Ms. Betty doesn’t arrange, Cherry. She answers the phones and handles the books, and talks to people at the front counter. My dad says I’m not allowed to talk to people anymore ever since that couple called off their engagement.”

“Why did they— _Miles_! What did you do?”

Miles shrugs, like it’s not a thing at all, and says, “Didn’t do anything but talk, Cherry. I can’t help how people respond to that. Dude called back the next day and canceled that flower order, though, so my dad wasn’t real happy about that.” He shakes his head and turns his attention back to the table. “So, anyway, I got to thinking, who do I know that’s good at organizing? Naturally, you came right to mind.”

“You mean you tried to make Rick do it and he said no,” Casey says.

“Cherry!” Miles exclaims, with a comical look of shock and horror. “I would never, ever let Foots anywhere near these flowers. These are delicate. He’d probably crush ’em, knock a box over and sit on ’em, or something like that. No, I needed somebody with a light touch who can tell the difference between a stargazer and a calla.”

“Are those… um, types of flowers?”

“See? You’re getting it already,” Miles says. “Now, first I’ll tell you what everything is. It’s all sorted by type. Then I’ll just stand down here at the end, and you hand me whatever I need, and I wrap it up and make it all pretty. I bet we can get done with this by lunch, and I’ll take you out for a milkshake after.”

Casey looks at the flowers suspiciously. “But we aren’t telling anybody about this, right? Not even Rick and Alicia?”

“This is our own dirty little secret. We shall never, ever, _ever_ speak of it again,” Miles agrees. “Also, Ma wants you over for dinner after your swim class.”

“ _Miles._ ”

“Oh, don’t worry, Cherry. Nobody’s gonna try to make you eat anything you don’t want,” Miles says, opening up the boxes of flowers and straightening them on the table. “She did get a new juicer thing, though, so if she offers you a cup of juice, you’d better drink it. We’re humoring her about the juicer. Also, don’t ask what’s in it, ’cause you probably don’t want to know.”

 

**Saturday, June 30th, 2012: Dayton, Ohio — Miles**

Casey still smells like a little freckly cup of espresso when he picks Miles up at around a quarter after two, but there’s worse things to smell, and at least he’s not wearing that silly green apron anymore. Even Miles has a line he will not cross, and taking people out in public wearing aprons is just way, way past that line.

Miles had sort of expected Casey to look a little worse than he does, what with this being the first trip out to the center without Karofsky, but obviously the combination of putting together wedding bouquets and a big glass of bright reddish–orange juice from Miles’ Ma’s juicer was just the thing to perk the kid right up.

That April girl almost ruins everything in the first two minutes, when she comes bounding up in that pounce–on–you–out–of–the–blue way she does. “Hello, citizens of Lima! Aren't you missing—”

Miles starts flailing his arms around and mouthing “no” and doing a cut–it–out motion with his hands, which luckily she notices, because she stops talking and looks at Miles like she’s not sure what’s wrong with him. Which is fine, because at least it means she’s not talking about Karofsky and getting Casey all worked up or anything.

“Hey, April,” Miles says. “We’re just here for your fine company and to eat all of your cookies.”

For some reason, that makes Casey start to giggle, and Miles looks over at him, then back at April. April doesn’t look like she knows what’s going on any better than Miles does, because she just sorta looks confused and shrugs, and it’s almost like a bonding moment.

“Are cookies really that funny?” Miles asks, and Casey starts giggling again, covering his face with both his hands. “Breathe, Cherry. I swear.”

“Oh, they are. They really, really are,” Casey insists. April shakes her head again, and Miles shakes his right back, and the two of them roll their eye at each other before April flounces away, and Miles steers Casey in the direction of the seats, grabbing a plate of cookies on the way. For obvious reasons, Miles directs them away from the couch where Casey and Karofsky usually sat, and then end up side by side in a pair of plush chairs that have seen better days. Or decades.

“So, you and Taylor been talking about what’s going on with PFLAG this year?” Miles asks. He helps himself to one of the chocolate chip cookies from the plate balancing between the two chairs’ arms, and nudges a sugar cookie across the plate in Casey’s direction. Casey ignores it.

“His family’s traveling a lot this summer,” Casey says. “Conferences and things? We’re getting together at the end of July to start planning, though. It’s, you know. Been a busy June.”

“Yeah, it has,” Miles says. “We should have more parties this year, is what I think. Make everybody bring food. Now that vegan–Berry’s gone, we don’t have to worry about mushroom loafs and cakes make out of bean curd.”

“I don’t ever worry about those.”

“I always worry about those, Cherry. That vegan shit’s insidious. Sneaks into everything,” Miles says.

“We could have more parties, though,” Casey says. “I’ll talk to Taylor. I’m not sure who’s doing what, or how much he wants to do, or anything like that. Maybe we could form a party committee.”

“I could be the party committee.”

“You could be _on_ the party committee, Miles. You can’t be a whole committee by yourself.”

“Who says?” Miles asks. He eats another cookie and lets his eyes drift around the room, making eye contact with a couple of people on the way.

“The dictionary. A committee is a group of people, and there’s just one of you,” Casey points out, sounding all stubborn.

“Yeah, but one of me’s all anybody really needs,” Miles says, in his best ‘friend’–making voice, and Casey glances up at him, his cheeks turning ever so slightly pink before he looks away.

“That’s, um. Probably true,” Casey says.

“Oh, it’s true, Cherry. Believe me, it’s true.”

Casey’s face turns even brighter pink, and he sinks down into his chair. After a couple of minutes pass in silence, Miles digs through his backpack and pulls out a Code Red Mountain Dew, passing it to Casey, and they sit there for a while, occasionally making idle conversation about the people walking around and wondering what the lecture–talk–thingy was about today, or if they even had one.

Eventually, Casey pulls out a book and tucks his feet underneath him, curling into a tiny little ball in his chair. Miles eats the last of the cookies—not a single one of which Casey ever touched—and tries to talk to Casey, which doesn’t work so great, since that boy goes selectively deaf with a book in his hand. He watches Casey read for a little while, which is sort of boring and sort of funny, since he makes faces at all the surprising parts, and then his attention turns to the group of guys across the room.

Miles exchanges some sweeping looks with a couple of them, but hottie number three gives him that lock–on, go–ahead eye contact, and Miles is about halfway out of his chair to go over there and introduce himself when he remembers that the whole reason they’d even come out here today was because he wanted to keep Casey company. He starts to slowly lower himself back down into his seat, looking back in Casey’s direction.

“You can go over there if you want,” Casey says, without even looking up from his book.

“Nah, Cherry. It’s fine. I didn’t come here for that!” Miles protests. “I don’t know what you’ve heard, but that’s not what this is!”

“Miles, I know you,” Casey says, still not looking up from his book.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Miles asks. He’s not sure if he’s indignant or embarrassed or maybe just a little bit disappointed that Casey might know about all of that. “What’s that mean, Casey?”

“It means I know you, and I know why you come here, and I still like you just fine,” Casey says, finally closing his book and looking over at Miles. “Go make a friend.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure,” Casey says, and he does look and sound pretty sure. “I have a book.”

“Well, okay, Cherry. If you’re sure.”

Casey opens his book, and Miles can see his eyes start to travel across the page again. “I’m sure.”

“You’re the best, Cherry, you know that?” Miles says, grinning as he stands up.

Casey nods his head absently, fiddling with a little piece of hair falling into his face, like he’s already tuned Miles out again, but as Miles starts to walk away, Casey calls out, “Be back by five-thirty, though, or I’m leaving you here with your new friend.”

“Oh, I will. You just bet I will!”


	2. July 2012

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Man-gossip, red Jello-O, proprietary baristism, hot forbidden love chicks, and a PFLAG planning meeting (with bonus juice)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains a small bit you've already seen before, "The Other Shirt" -- it was written to fit into this timeline, though, so into this timeline it finally goes.

**Wednesday July 4th, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

Casey answers his phone before it has a chance to ring a second time. “David! Hi! Hey!”

“Hey, Case.” There’s a strange background noise that isn’t usually there when David calls. “So guess where I am.”

“Um. Atlanta?” Casey says. “I can’t get any more specific than that.”

David laughs. “I’m on the roof.”

“Oh! Why are you on the roof? Is everything alright? Was there a fire?” Casey asks, then realizes that’s silly. “No, wait, if there were a fire, you’d go down, not up.”

“Ty had some idea about us watching fireworks from the roof. I volunteered to do the recon for later,” David explains. “There’s a park or something that’ll have them. Coach dragging you into Lima for the fireworks and everything?”

“Oh, yes. You can imagine my joy. No, you can _hear_ my joy. Hear this? This is my joy,” Casey says. He doesn’t sound very joyful, because he’s not. At all.

“Could be worse, I guess. I heard Coach ran the 5K last year. You have to work since it’s a holiday? I forgot to ask.”

“No, John’s working. I told Ms. Horatio I would work, but I think she knew that was mostly so I didn’t have to go do all the fireworks and noise.” Casey sighs loudly. “Coach already has the grill going, and it’s still an hour until lunch. She cooks so much food. I don’t understand why she cooks so much food. Monty only eats one plate of it, and there’s just. It’s _so_ much food, David.”

“Well, Coach eats a lot of food, remember,” David says. “Maybe she’s gonna eat the leftovers for breakfast.”

“Who eats hamburgers for breakfast?”

David laughs. “Coach does.”

“Nobody else does, though. I don’t even want them for lunch,” Casey says. “I might just eat some pie and then sit in my room until it’s time to go, because that’s just. It’s too much grilling.”

“I don’t know, Danny might. But yeah, pie sounds good. Not as hot, either.”

“Is it still so hot down there?” Casey asks. He knows, of course, exactly how hot it is in Atlanta. He checks every day. It’s just one of the things he doesn’t mention. 

“No more records, but yeah, still pretty hot.”

“Don’t get sunburned on the roof. Oh! Or heatstroke. There’s nobody up there to revive you. Maybe you should go back inside where it’s cooler and less up on a roof.”

David laughs. “Yeah, probably so. It’s not too hot yet, though.”

“Maybe you could carry an umbrella up there to block the— oh. There’s a car here.” Casey peeks through his blinds and realizes in horror who is getting out of the car. “ _David_. David, it’s Mr. Schuester! Mr. Schuester is here! And Ms. Pillsbury! Or, Mrs. Schuester or whatever she is now!”

“You think Coach invited them for lunch?” David asks. “She’s probably hyphenating again. Pillsbury-Schuester.” He pauses. “Thank god she was never Pillsbury-Tanaka.”

“David, I can’t eat lunch with those people here,” Casey whispers. “I can’t eat lunch with my _teacher_. That’s just. That’s _not okay_ , David!”

“Just… get pie and head back to your room?” David suggests. “Shit, I don’t know, Case.”

“I wish I could go up on the roof,” Casey says. This roof. Any roof. Preferably David’s roof.

“Yeah. I don’t think Coach can blame you for not wanting to eat with Schue and Ms. P, though.”

“She’ll just look at me like how she does,” Casey says, and sighs. “And Monty will look sad and then he’ll talk about how important it is to interact with _actual people_. I keep telling them that I interact with people all the time, but Monty says he isn’t sure Miles counts.”

“Yeah, teachers aren’t actual people,” David says. “Tell ’em I back you up on that one.”

“I mostly really don’t tell them much,” Casey says. “I just don’t have anything to say to them. I’m doing all the stuff they want, so I don’t see why I have to talk about it, too.”

“Yeah. Oh, hey, I know. Laryngitis. That way you can ignore any questions from Schue or Ms. P.”

“I might just stare at them. They’ll think it’s creepy and then nobody will care if I go back to my room.”

David laughs again. “Yeah, that works too. Let me know how it goes.”

And there’s the cue the the conversation is winding down, which is the worst part about talking to David. “Yeah. Yes. I’ll do that. And, um. You let me know how the roof goes, with the fireworks. Maybe you could, um. Check in. Tomorrow. So I know you didn’t fall off the roof or get heat stroke.”

“Yeah, I will,” David says. “Probably the heat stroke’s more likely than falling, though. Also easier to recover from.”

“But don’t do either, though, okay? Please?”

“Yeah, yeah, I won’t. Don’t give Ms. P a heart attack with your staring, either. Schue’s fine though.”

“I bet I can go for three or four minutes without blinking!”

David laughs. “Probably. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay,” Casey says. “I— okay, yes. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Bye, Case.”

“Bye, David.”

Casey lets himself fall face first onto his bed, and he sighs loudly into the mattress. This sucks, everything sucks, holidays with teachers suck, Atlanta sucks, and not even being able to say something as simple as ‘I miss you’ really, really sucks.

 

**Thursday July 5th, 2012: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Everyone had assured all of the freshmen players that things would settle down and start to feel more normal after their meal plans activated and the fourth was past. It's only been a day since Independence Day, but things do seem to be falling into a routine. 

The line in the cafeteria isn't that long, and Dave doesn't pay much attention as he picks out his food, looking around and trying to figure out why the non-football players are there in the middle of the summer. Most people don't voluntarily choose to take summer classes, or at least Dave wouldn't think so. A group of girls walks past talking about some kind of workout and Dave realizes they're from the volleyball team when he reads their shirts. 

After Dave goes through the line, he heads to the table Ty's already staked out and sits down. 

"It's not as good as fast food," Ty says, "but this sure is more convenient!"

"I hear you," Dave agrees. The three of them with cars had taken turns driving off-campus for meals, and they'd even gone over to a grocery store with a strange name to get snacks and frozen dinners. The other three had all laughed when Dave called pop 'pop'. 

Coop sits his tray down, then disappears with a comment about talking to one of the other guys on the team, and Danny sits down without a word, starting to eat. Dave makes it through most of his food without even noticing what's on his tray, and then he heaves a sigh and glares at the red Jell-O he picked up without even realizing it. 

It's probably normal. He hasn't eaten in a cafeteria since school let out, and it makes sense to automatically pick up the same things he would have put on his tray back in high school. 

Even if he doesn't eat them himself. 

"Did the Jell-O offend you?" Ty asks, and Dave startles, wondering how long he's been glaring at the stuff. 

"Oh. No. Just." Dave sighs. "I don't even like red Jell-O."

"Why'd you get it, then?" Danny asks. 

"Habit," Dave answers morosely. "Just habit."

 

**Saturday, July 7th, 2012: Atlanta, Georgia — Ty**

They may not have been on campus for two full weeks yet, but Ty already knows that Saturdays are a great day. They still have to workout for a couple of hours in the morning, but after that, they’re free, and this particular hot (but not as hot as the week before) Saturday, Ty and his roommates are sitting in the living area, in the middle of an epic _Star Wars_ marathon, fueled by popcorn and Coke. Later they’re going to order pizza. 

Special K stands up right in the middle of a scene, though, and waves his phone in the air vaguely before heading off to his bedroom, the door clicking shut behind him. Ty shakes his head and looks at Coop and Danny. 

“I don’t get it,” he says. “Don’t get me wrong, I like him. But I don’t get him.”

“He’s not really the Pope,” Danny answers, gesturing at the screen. “He just looks like him.”

“Nah, not him. Special K.”

“Oh. What about him?”

Ty looks over at Coop. “Coop?”

“Naw, I know what you mean, man,” Coop says. “It’s true. There’s something sketchy about him. Or the opposite of sketchy, like he’s not sketchy _enough_.”

“He doesn’t really talk about home at all. No clue about him, except what he said that first day. Lima, Ohio. Oh, and a friend in the army.” Ty shakes his head slowly. “It’s weird. It’s really weird.”

“Who’s he talking to on the phone all the time, is what I want to know,” Coops says. “Does he talk to his folks that much? Who talks to their folks that much?”

“I heard him answer the phone one day,” Danny says. “He didn’t say ‘mom’ or ‘dad’. K-something.”

“He talked to his dad on the fourth. I remember that,” Ty says.

“Have you seen inside his room? No pictures up in there at all.” Coop shakes his head like it’s a major tragedy. “Well, that one frame, but it’s never turned on. Maybe he’s religious or something.”

“Hey, yeah! Like those guys on bicycles. Latter Day Saints.” Danny makes a face. “But Special K doesn’t wear a tie or ride a bike.”

“Maybe that’s why he doesn’t talk about home, then?” Ty says. “They didn’t want him to play football or something.”

“Maybe they took his bike away when he came down here. I hear they do stuff like that when they kick you out,” Coop says. 

“I bet so! Maybe he got help from some anti-religious group, that’s why all his gift cards were Best Buy. They wanted him to have technology!” Danny looks really proud of himself. “And we all benefit.”

“Good point,” Ty concedes. “We do all benefit from that.”

“It’s not natural, keeping to yourself all the time like that, though,” Coop says. “He’s gonna go crazy, never having any pictures up, never talking about anybody he knows. It’s just strange.”

“Right. Guess as long as he only goes crazy on the field, though, it’s his business.” Ty shrugs. “But you’re right. It’s pretty strange.”

 

**Thursday, July 12th, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Azimio**

Starbucks apparently doesn’t sell those coffee–lotto things anymore, which sorta pisses Az off, since he’d been looking forward to one of those for the last six months. Maybe he can get the kid behind the counter to make one for him, though Az isn’t sure that kid’s actually old enough to be working at any kind of food service job.

“You think you could make one of those frozen chocolate coffee–lotto things for me?” Az asks, leaning on the counter. “Been looking forward to one of those bitches for six months, now they aren’t even on the menu no more.”

“Oh, um. Is that the one with the chocolate syrup in it?” The kid’s pretty jumpy, like he’s maybe had too much of the coffee he’s supposed to be selling. 

“Yeah, that’s the one,” Az agrees. “I want the biggest size you got.”

“Okay, I’ll just, um. I’ll put some things into the blender and if it’s not right, I’ll try again, okay? I haven’t ever made one of those before, but I bet I can figure it out!”

Az grins. “You’re alright, kid. I’ll tell you if tastes right.”

“Thanks!” the kid chirps at him, and starts pouring various things, coffee and chocolate syrup included, into the blender. When he’s done blending it, it looks like it’s about the right color, and the kid puts a little into one of those tiny paper sample cups and hands it to Az. “Okay, is this right?”

Az gulps it down and then nods. “Yeah, that’s right. So this is damn nice weather,” Az says. “I mean, it’s the middle of July.”

The kid pours the stuff from the blender into a large plastic cup, and tops it with a big pile of whipped cream and more chocolate syrup. “I thought it would be hotter, because it was so hot this spring,” he says. “But it’s not. Hotter. Well, it’s hotter in some places. Some places are very hot, but here isn’t one of those place.” He sets the drink on the counter and stares at the cash register, frowning. “I don’t know how to ring this up, so I’m just going to call it a venti coffee.”

“Cool!” Az hands over the $2.20. “Thanks, kid.”

Az sips on his coffee as he exits the store and on the drive home, and once he gets there, he logs in to Facebook and updates his status to, _Just got a $5 coffee drink for $2.20 at the Starbucks. The hyperactive kid they got working there hooked me up! Ask him for a frozen chocolate coffee–lotto._

After he updates his status, he does a search for Hudson and Puckerman, because he doesn’t really have a lot of people from McKinley on there, mostly because they don’t ever cross his mind. At first, he’s not so sure he found the right profile for Puckerman, on account of how it says ‘in a relationship with Kurt Hummel’ and that can’t be right. The picture looks like him, though, and sure enough, it’s him _and_ Hummel in some kind of room full of rainbows. Yeah, between the training and Dave, Az knows that it’s not really all about rainbows with the gays, but apparently it is with some of them, anyway.

Puckerman is capital G rainbow gay. Who’d have thought it? Well, Hummel, apparently.

The little notification thingy pops up on the side of his Facebook, letting him know that Dave Karofsky has commented on his status. Too bad for Dave, he won’t be getting any $2.20 coffee drinks down there in Atlanta.

 _You asshole_ is all the comment says.

 _I can’t help it that I’m that fucking charming_ , Az types back.

 _Yeah, so fucking charming you conned Casey into cutting you a deal_ is the next response.

 _Oh shit that was your foundling? I had no idea man. Kinda scrawny isn’t he?_ Az replies.

_Shut up. Everyone’s scrawny compared to you. Don’t go bother him again._

_Everyone except your fat ass. I’ll bother him if I want._

The little notification bubble thing pops up again, letting him know that Finn Hudson has approved his friendship request. Az does a quick check to make sure Hudson’s not rainbow–gay now too, but he doesn’t look like he’s in a relationship with anybody, so at least there’s still a few not–gay people left in Lima. Who’d have thought?

Hudson apparently wants to weigh in on the whole coffee thing: _I get my coffee for free. You bothered the wrong barista._

 _Which one do I need to bother to get it free?_ Az types back.

 _None. Leave the baristas alone._ Dave adds another comment, and he likes Hudson’s comment too.

_Your foundling was really fond of me. He gave me extra whipped cream._

Hudson just types back _No._ Dave and Puckerman both like that comment, and immediately after, the notification thing lets him know—a little late, if you ask Az—that Noah Puckerman has approved his friendship request.

 _Only two people on this thread get free coffee from their baristas,_ Puckerman weighs in.

 _Yeah, and Az ain’t one of them,_ Dave types.

 _I’M ONE!_ Hudson adds.

 _Proprietary baristism, I see how it is. Maybe I’ll complain to corporate._ Az hits enter and grins, ’cause that’ll probably set Dave off again, and it’s funny to get him riled up. Puckerman responds first, though.

_Good luck with that. Thing about Starbucks is they /like/ the gays._

_I’ll just order my coffee w/o the side of rainbows then_ , Az writes.

 _Just leave Casey alone. I’m going to warn him about you_ , Dave types.

_Don’t worry mama Dave I won’t hurt your sweet widdle baby._

_Fuck you. I’m going to go for a run now._

_Enjoy your hundred degree temp. I’m finished my frozen chocolate coffee–lotto._

Fifteen or twenty minutes pass, and suddenly Az gets another notification that someone’s commented on his status, only this time, it’s Dave’s little hyperactive foundling, who Az guesses must have seen on Dave’s Facebook that he was commenting all over Az’s post.

_David, was that your friend Az? If I had known I would have given him coffee for free!_

 

**Monday, July 16th, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

Casey has one foot out the door when he hears Monty calling his name, something about whether the three of them might be watching one of the Netflix movies after dinner.

“I’ve got to go,” Casey says over his shoulder. “I’ll be late for swim.”

“You’ll be back after?” Monty asks, wandering out of the living room. “If you don’t want to watch either of the movies, we can always start _Torchwood_ like we talked about.”

“Having dinner at Miles’ house again, sorry,” Casey says, trying not to sound as impatient to get out the door as he feels. It’s nothing at all against Monty, who really does try hard, it’s just that Miles’ house is so much easier to be at. Less complicated.

Monty’s face falls momentarily, but then he perks up again. “Tomorrow, then? We’ve seen so little of you lately, it’s almost like living with a ghost with a very particular taste in books!” Monty laughs at himself, and Casey gives him a small smile in response, but continues walking out the door as Monty adds, “Did you get your Power Bars? And those Gatorade pouches Shannon likes you to bring?”

Casey lifts his swim bag in hopes that that’s an adequate response, and it must be, because Monty just nods and calls out, “We’ll see you at eleven!”

Casey waves at Monty in acknowledgement, then climbs into the Lemon, tossing his swim bag onto the passenger seat before he backs out of the driveway. On the way to the pool, he stops at the gas station and buys a red slushie and two large bottles of water. He puts the water in his bag with the Power Bars and the Gatorade pouches, then he drives to the pool and sits in the parking lot for a few minutes with the windows rolled down, drinking his slushie as the afternoon heat permeates the car’s interior.

After he finishes his slushie, Casey goes in and changes into his swim stuff, and as Brandon walks into the locker room, Casey says, “Heads up!” and tosses him the Gatorade pouches.

“You sure?” Brandon asks him. “You’re like my G Series dealer or something.”

“I don’t like that flavor, but Aunt Shannon won’t stop buying it,” Casey says, shrugging. “Somebody should use them.”

Brandon seems to think that’s a perfectly reasonable explanation, because he shoves the pouches into his bag without any more argument, and then they all go out and swim. Casey shaves a second off his best time, drinks one of his bottles of water, and then gives away his "extra" Power Bars.

When it's time to go change, though, Coach Brum waves him over. He has a weird look on his face, concerned but otherwise hard to read, that makes Casey start anxiously looking for a reason why he has to leave right then, and can't actually stay to discuss anything that involves concerned faces. The last few conversations with adults that started with concerned faces didn't yield anything particularly positive for Casey.

"So how are things, Casey?" Coach Brum begins. "You're enjoying the team?"

"Yes. It's good. I, um. I like it."

Coach Brum nods, the look of concern not lightening, maybe even deepening. "And everything's going well for you? You had a couple rough days, end of last month."

Casey's heart starts to pound a little, for reasons he can't quite identify. He’s doing what he’s supposed to do. His swimming is improving. There doesn’t need to be a conversation about anything. "But my time was good tonight," he says. "It keeps getting better. I'm trying really hard."

"I know you are," Coach Brum says, nodding his head in agreement. "I can tell you're pushing yourself." He frowns slightly, and he looks a little unsure as to what, if anything, he wants to says next. Finally, he continues, "Just be careful about pushing yourself _too_ hard. Don't overdo it on the conditioning. You can build that up gradually."

The only conditioning Casey does is swimming and the daily run Coach Brum wants them to do in the mornings, but he nods his head in agreement anyway. "I won't. I mean, I'm not. Just the, um, swimming and the running."

Coach Brum doesn't look like he really believes what Casey's saying, and once again, Casey wonders why people ask questions when they've already decided the answers for themselves. "Well. Pay attention to your reserves. I know we talk a lot about BMI and all of that, but that's an awareness thing, not something to obsess over."

"I don't," Casey says. It's true, too; he doesn't even pay attention during that part of dryland. He hears enough about what he should and shouldn't eat and should and shouldn't do as it is.

Coach Brum still looks dubious, but he says, "Alright, then. If you ever need to talk about anything…"

"I don't," Casey says, and means it. "I'm fine," he adds. That part, he doesn't mean as much, but it gets easier and easier to smile while he says it.

Coach Brum waves him away to the locker room, and Casey showers and changes into his clothes. He drinks his other bottle of water on the way to Miles' house and tries to guess what weird stuff Miles' Ma might be shoving into her juicer tonight. Hopefully it won't involve cabbage again; if Miles expects Casey to keep humoring his Ma, his Ma has to stop juicing cabbage.

 

**Thursday, July 19th, 2012: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Dave whips off the sweat–stained T-shirt as soon as he walks into his room, sending it arching across the room into the not quite full laundry basket. He’ll have to take care of that, he thinks absently, later in the day. Practice clothes have to be washed. He pointedly ignores the much fuller laundry bag that has all of the clothes he _doesn’t_ wear to practice. With only four sets of clothes for practice, and running two–a–days, Dave already feels like he knows the dorm’s laundry room a little too well.

Even though he knows he needs to make the time to wash the rest of his clothes.

There’s just enough of them, though, that he hasn’t had to yet, three weeks into pre-season. Dave heads to the bathroom and pulls on a mostly–clean pair of jeans before rummaging in the drawer for a T-shirt that’s both clean and not too ratty. It’s just some guys from the team, headed out for pizza, but the old ‘Star Spangled Spectacular’ race shirt with the hole in the shoulder is weight–room clothes, Dave figures.

He grabs a white sleeve and pulls it out, then frowns, not recognizing it. He holds it up after a minute and takes in the white shirt and the black block lettering that’s so familiar, yet feels like a ghost of another time.

Funny how the gap between the end of April and the middle of July can feel like so much more than just not–quite–three months.

Casey must’ve made two shirts, Dave assumes, and shoved this one deep in Dave’s drawers, for Dave to find while he was packing for Tech or even later, like now. And printed on it is a single word: Loved.

Dave sighs, fighting the bittersweet smile he knows is on his face. So much _happened_ his senior year up to that point, and plenty of other things, different things, happened after the point at which Casey must’ve made the shirt.

Dave traces the letters briefly, thinking about Casey and why he would have made the shirt, and he sighs. Dave doesn’t know for sure what love is, and he’s pretty sure Casey’s not any better off than he is, but maybe it doesn’t matter, as long as the other person feels loved in some way. And Casey was—is still—his best friend.

So it doesn’t do Dave any good to dwell on it, to think about what Casey might have meant with the shirt, and whether or not he still means it in the way he did in April. It’s enough to know, Dave tells himself, that he meant something positive, that Casey cared enough to make it and to leave it in Dave’s drawer for him to find at a later date.

Dave finds himself sighing again as he folds the shirt and places it carefully back in his drawer. He finds his other shirt from that week and places it next to ‘Loved’ in the bottom. He wouldn’t wear them in public; too hard to explain and he’s not sure he wants to try to explain either of them. But he knows that they’re there.

Dave grabs a plain black T-shirt and pulls it on over his head before shutting the drawer gently. After pizza, he’ll need to go re-acquaint himself with the laundry room for more than just one load, and by tomorrow, the rest of his T-shirts will cover up the two white ones, but he’ll still remember them, sitting plainly, almost outspokenly, at the bottom of the drawer.

 

**Monday, July 23th, 2012: Atlanta, Georgia — Ty**

“Two hours free!” Danny whoops as they head into their room. “Think they messed up our schedules?”

“Don’t know, don’t care,” Ty answers immediately. “I’ll take it.”

Special K’s phone starts to ring, and he answers it really fast. “Hey, Casey!” Before any of them can say a word, Dave’s down the hall and in his room. 

Coop and Danny exchange a look, then Coop says, “Well, so what d’you make of that?”

“Caaa-seee,” Danny drawls. “Guess we know who he likes to talk to, now. Think she’s one of them Latter Day people too?”

“I’m thinking I’ve never heard Special K that enthusiastic,” Ty says with a smirk. “He makes Peduzzi look lethargic all of a sudden!” 

“So he’s got a girlfriend back home,” Coop says. He shakes his head. “How come he don’t talk about her, do you think?”

“Maybe she’s not his girlfriend yet? Anymore?” Ty guesses. “Or her parents don’t want her to see him? Maybe she’s younger.”

“Forbidden love.” Danny grins. “I’m gonna tell that Heather on the volleyball team about it. Maybe she’ll think it’s so romantic and agree to go out with me after all.”

“Keep dreaming, Danny,” Coop says. “Anyway, I think those Mormons, they’re like, hooked up for life, so they probably keep ’em apart until they’re ready to marry ’em off. She’s probably some sweet little blushing Ohio virgin. I bet they don’t even get to talk to each other alone in person.”

“I read about that in US history. They sew ’em up if they sleep near each other!” Danny looks disturbingly proud of himself.

“What do they sew up?” Coop asks, sounding horrified. “Their… what, their mouths or something? You don’t mean like… you know.”

“Their clothes, duh.” Danny shakes his head. “You can’t sew a person’s mouth together!”

“Maybe his family made him come here for college to keep him away from her or something, then,” Ty suggests.

“I bet she’s hot. Secret forbidden love story chicks are always hot,” Coop adds. “Special K sure answered the phone like she’s hot.”

“I didn’t know Special K could sound that way, actually,” Danny says. “Did you?”

“Naw, I pegged him for the stoic type.”

 

**Wednesday, July 25th, 2012: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Dave feels absurdly like he’s won the lottery when he steps into his dorm room. The other guys are all out, for various reasons, and while Dave should probably work on studying the playbook or do his assignment for class in the morning, he knows exactly the best way to take advantage of the empty dorm.

Ten minutes and two packs of ramen noodles later, Dave picks up his shower caddy and snorts. He wonders if anyone else was as confused as he and Evans and Hudson had been, but he’s sure not going to ask. Dave’s always thought of the southern states as a little behind, maybe, but in Atlanta, Dave feels like the hick. Even the guys that come from further outside the city in Georgia are used to the big city in a way that Dave definitely isn’t.

There’s always enough hot water, but there’s rarely any privacy in the shower, unless the dorm’s empty; even with two bathrooms for four guys, if there’s more than one of them home, there’s often a crowd of the other freshmen players too, thanks to their multiple game systems plus the largest TV on the floor.

When Dave’s finished actually cleaning himself, he listens for a few seconds, and when he doesn’t hear any sound from the rest of the dorm, he decides that maybe, just maybe, he can indulge himself a little.

No one in Atlanta knows he’s gay, at least not officially, and Dave doesn’t really want to confirm anything because they overhear him in the shower, calling out a guy’s name. It’s meant some jokes already about Dave being repressed, and he just grimaces and doesn’t argue because— they have no idea.

It’s a dangerous road to go down, or that’s what he’s been telling himself for months, but he’s a day’s drive from Lima, a little bit lonely, and even if he wasn’t lonely at all, he still misses Casey.

Casey.

Dave closes his eyes and lets his fingers wrap around his cock, because for whatever reason, in Atlanta, it’s a lot harder for his brain not to automatically call up images that he probably shouldn’t dwell on for as long as he does. Images like Casey at the pool, climbing out with his swim trunks hanging off his hips and rivulets of water sliding down over Casey’s freckles. Images like the Saturday afternoon in May they spent working in the yard, and Casey’s sweat–darkened hair clinging to the edges of his face. Images like Casey’s grin when they had Brown running all around Lima, or whenever he’s relaxed. Images like Casey’s face whenever they tried a new macaroni and cheese (versus his face whenever it was Famous Karofsky Chili night). Even images like the one when Casey moved into Coach’s house, or the expression on the morning they met for breakfast at Pat’s before Dave climbed into his truck, and Casey into his car, and while Casey drove to work, Dave drove towards the interstate, and then southwards.

Dave’s mind brings the swimming pool image back to the forefront, and before he totally registers how close he is, he comes hard onto the shower wall, his other hand holding him up when he staggers slightly. He’s not sure what he said when he came—though he could bet it was ‘Case’, and it’s a good thing his roommates aren’t around—but he knows what he was thinking about, and as the shower slowly washes away all the evidence, Dave can’t decide if it helps the pain, or makes the hole a little bigger.

 

**Saturday, July 28th, 2012: Lima — Casey**

“Miles,” Casey whispers. “Miles, tell your Ma I don’t want anymore of that juice.”

“You tell her yourself, Cherry,” Miles says. “I’m not talking to Ma about that juicer. She comes around here with juice, you’d better tell her yourself or else you can hide, I guess, but if you’ve got a problem with the juice, you are just on your own.”

“I’m floating away on that juice. Nobody needs that much juice!”

“Well, you could try eating something she cooks. She might back off with the juice if you’d eat,” Miles suggests, and Casey glares at him. “Don’t give me that face, Cherry. I’m just making a suggestion, is all.”

“I think the last stuff had radishes. _Radishes_ , Miles.”

“She made me some yesterday, I swear to god it had a pickle in it. A pickle, Cherry. Who does that?” 

Casey and Miles both shakes their heads over the indignities of unexpected vegetables and pseudo-vegetables in juice, and then the doorbell rings, and Miles shouts, “Alicia! You and Foots come on down here!” and then gets up to open the front door to let Taylor in. “Hey, Taylor. Come on in.”

Keeping his voice down, Casey adds, “And watch out for the juice!” 

“What’s wrong with the juice?” Taylor asks, frowning. “I had some before we left town. It was good.”

“It’s. Um. Less fruity lately,” Casey says. “Radishes.”

“Pickles,” Miles adds.

“One time she added rice. I didn’t even know you could juice rice!” Casey says.

“Maybe it’s like that coconut water stuff. Which is not filling at all. You really want coconut milk.” Taylor sits down and shrugs. “The coconut water is just… thin.”

“Better than rice juice, probably,” Casey says, as Alicia comes walking down the stairs, Rick following behind her and making five times as much noise.

“Hey, Taylor!” Rick calls out, before he’s all the way down. “How was… uh? Was it San Antonio or San Diego?”

“Santa Barbara,” Taylor says. “But it was pretty cool.”

“Stand up, you!” Alicia orders, dragging Taylor into a hug as soon as he gets to his feet. 

“Well, dang, Taylor! I think you grew about a foot,” Rick says. “I think you might be taller than Casey now.”

“Yeah, I know!” Taylor grins. “Not sure if it’s a full foot, but.”

“I don’t think he is,” Casey whispers to Miles.

“I think he might be, maybe,” Miles says. “Sorry, Cherry.”

“Stop talking now, Miles,” Casey says, still quietly, then he continues, in a louder voice, “Well, we should decide what we want to talk about today. Then we can, um. Talk about that stuff.”

“Parties,” Miles says. 

“I am pretty sure Kurt Hummel would kill us, all the way from New York, if we reduced PFLAG to just parties,” Taylor says. “That much I’m sure of.”

“Like to see him try,” Miles says, but he says it very, very quietly, so only Casey can hear him.

“I think we should talk about record keeping. Oh, and sponsors or donations or something like that,” Casey says. “But we can talk about parties, too. I like parties.” Miles makes a little snorting noise through his nose, like he knows perfectly well that Casey doesn’t actually like parties, which is true. 

Taylor squints a little. “Sponsors for what? That sounds kind of complicated. I thought we’d figure out discussion topics or whatever.”

“Well, clubs and organizations and things cost money to run,” Casey says. “We keep talking about libraries and movie nights and, um. Like Miles says. Parties. If we got sponsors, they could pay for some of that stuff.”

“Yeah, I’ll let you handle that, then,” Taylor declares. “I’ll research movies or something.”

“The school has forms for it. It’s not that complicated,” Casey says. “Aunt Shannon told me how it works through the school. I can do that stuff, the paperwork stuff, but if you can think of any businesses that might be good to talk to.”

“What about where you work?” Taylor asks, grinning a little. “Seems like we could have coffee at meetings.”

“Ms. Horatio would probably give us all the coffee ever,” Casey says. “It won’t pay for books or e-readers, though. Hmm. But you can’t drink books, so it could go either way.”

“I was thinking more like incentive to come to the meetings.”

“More incentive than bean loaf,” Miles says. 

“Ooh, I bet Ma would donate some juice!” Alicia says. “That’d be really good.”

“Yeah, that’d be awesome,” Taylor agrees.

Casey says, “No!” and realizes that Miles says it at the same time. “See? Miles agrees with me.”

“I think her juice is real nice,” Rick says, and Casey thinks maybe Rick should just go back upstairs with Alicia if his only input is going to be about juice and how Taylor’s taller than him now. Which he _isn’t_.

“You didn’t have the radishes,” Casey says, crossing his arms. “You’d understand.”

“I like the spinach, actually,” Alicia says. “Spinach–apple is good. You should try it before you leave, Taylor.”

Taylor nods. “Okay, so. You’re going to do sponsors and stuff, and Miles wants parties.”

“Not every meeting or anything like that,” Miles says, sprawling out on the sofa so he takes up about two thirds of it, propping one of his feet on Casey’s shin. “I was thinking we could maybe try to hook up with some of the other groups in towns around here, though. We know Dayton’s got a group, but probably some other schools might, too.”

“Lots of schools between here and Dayton,” Taylor says, whistling a little. “Or between here and Toledo, for that matter.”

“We could have an ice-cream party. Everybody loves ice-cream,” Rick says.

“Everybody who’s twelve,” Miles retorts, and Alicia glares at him, patting Rick’s leg.

“Hello, everybody!” Miles’ Ma says from the doorway. “Guess what I’ve got?”

“Oh, Miles, I think it’s juice!” Casey whispers. “It’s juice!”

“Now I’ve got three different kinds,” she says, walking into the room and setting a tray on the coffee table. “Casey, here, this one’s for you. And Miles, no, not that one. That’s your sister’s.” She hands out five of the cups, which still leaves three on the tray. “And those are just to try after you finish the first cups!”

Casey takes the cup that Miles’ Ma said was for him, and he looks at the contents. They look much thicker than juice. “Um. Miles’ Ma?”

“What is it, sweetie?”

“I think this is maybe a smoothie, not juice.”

“It came out of my juicer,” Miles’ Ma answers quickly. “It’s juice.”

“Drink the juice, Cherry,” Miles says, out of the corner of his mouth. “Just drink the juice.”

Casey nods his head. “Okay. Thanks for the, um. Juice.” He takes a sip of it; it’s definitely a smoothie and not juice, but Miles’ Ma just keeps looking at him until he drinks more of it. “It’s good. Thank you.” At least it just tastes like fruit and milk and not like radishes.

“Good.” She nods and leaves the living room, waving over her shoulder.

“Can I have one of those?” Taylor asks, gesturing to the three remaining cups as he sets his empty cup down.

“You can have the rest of this one,” Casey says. 

“I am _not_ crossing Miles and Alicia’s Ma,” Taylor says, shaking his head and picking up one of the unclaimed cups. “Nope.”

Miles takes Casey’s cup and drinks a large swallow of the contents. “Yeah, that’s definitely a smoothie. Sorry, Cherry.” He takes another sip and hands it back. “So, what else are you two planning on doing this year?”

“Well, I’m getting a girlfriend.” Taylor finishes the rest of his second cup of juice and smiles. “Oh, wait, did you mean with PFLAG?”

“That’s a good goal, man,” Rick says. “We need more girls around here, anyway. It’s just Alicia and us dudes, and if you get a girlfriend, we can take our girls out places and they can talk about nail polish and politics and stuff.”

Casey looks over at Miles and grimaces, and Miles snickers. “Don’t worry, Cherry. Probably won’t have to really deal with a houseful of girls.”

“I’m not worried. I just don’t want to hear about nail polish. I don’t know anything about that. I don’t _want_ to know anything about that.”

“They don’t either,” Miles says, patting Casey on the leg. “They just talk about that kind of stuff to confuse us. It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

“We’ll take ’em to nice places and they can talk about girl stuff there,” Rick says. “We can take ’em to the movies! Hey, Alicia, you remember that one friend of yours, that Maci girl? She was asking when Taylor was gonna get back in town, you oughta call her up and tell her that he is.”

Taylor grins. “Yeah? She was?”

“Yeah. When I was carrying all the bags at the mall last Tuesday, you remember that, Alicia?”

Alicia nods. “I remember, Daniel. I’ll do that later.”

“Can we talk about PFLAG some more?” Casey asks. “Please?”

“Sorry, Cherry,” Miles says, shaking his head sadly. “I think we’ve lost them to their girl talk.”

Casey sighs and flops back against the sofa and waits for Rick and Taylor to finish talking about girlfriends and possible girlfriends and the things they’re going to do with their girlfriends. After a minute passes, he pulls his phone out of his pocket and sends a text to David.

_Just so you know if you hear about it, it isn’t true. Taylor is NOT taller than me!_

_As long as you promise not to believe that rumor about me having a bionic foot. It’s not true. I did not leap over any buildings… well, there might have a small model house. But that doesn’t count._

_Oh hush you liar, I know it was you because I saw it on the news last night_


	3. August 2012

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the summer ends, certain things come to light.

**Wednesday, August 1st, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

The bright blue car paces Casey for three blocks before he finally stops running and stands there, waiting for the car to roll to a stop beside him. Fortunately, the vehicle's driver does not turn out to be a potential kidnapper with sinister motives. Instead, it's just Brittany, who lowers the window and waves at him.

"Casey!" Brittany calls out. "It's very important that you get in the car right now."

Brittany doesn't sound any less upbeat than usual, which probably means that nothing terrible has happened, but Casey's mind still quickly flips through several potential disaster scenarios involving David, Santana, Shannon and Monty, Brittany’s cat, and/or Disney princesses. He approaches the car with caution.

"I'm going on my run right now," Casey explains. "I'm supposed to run every day, and this is time time of day that I like to do that. It gets hot later, and anyway, I have to swim, so—"

"I've been driving around looking for help for hours," Brittany says. Her smile fades into a gradually–deepening frown. "There's no one else to help me, though."

Brittany and Santana together are sort of terrifying, but Brittany on her own is just sad and sweet and confused–looking. Plus, she brought him all that Jell-O, and she's the only one who actually seems to understand about red being a flavor; he can't leave her in the lurch during what is obviously a crisis. Casey sighs. "Alright, Brittany, I can help you."

"Great!" she squeals, leaning across the passenger seat to push the door open. "Get in."

Casey buckles himself into the seat, and Brittany hands him a watermelon Blowpop before she pulls away from the curb. It occurs to him then that he has, in fact, just been lured into a car with candy, and as Brittany speeds off down the road, Casey laments the circumstances that prevented him and David from actually practicing those kidnapping scenarios. They might currently be coming in handy.

“Um. Brittany? Where are we going?”

Brittany turns her head to smile at him, taking her eyes off the road for an alarming period of time. “My house! I’ve been trying to find a guest to interview for _Fondue for Two_ for days, but so many people are already gone, and I’ve already interviewed the ones that are left. Well, except for you, so now you have to let me interview you.”

Casey’s eyes widen. “Oh, I don’t really think that’s a good—”

“But Casey, I’ve never had a swimming guest on _Fondue for Two_ before!” Brittany says, still looking at him and not at the road. “If I don’t have variety, we’ll lose viewership, and Lord Tubbington is already having such a hard time with his depression lately.” A bicyclist swerves sharply out of the way as Brittany’s sideview mirror almost clips him. Casey waves at the bicyclist apologetically; the bicyclist flips him off.

“Yes! Fine! I’ll be on your show if you watch the road!” Casey clings to the door handle and cringes when Brittany’s car starts to drift across the center line. “Please? Brittany? The road?”

Brittany giggles, and turns her head back towards the road. “Oh, that’s right. I’m driving!”

Casey possibly holds his breath for the rest of the drive, exhaling loudly as Brittany pulls into her driveway. He follows her into the house, wondering if there’s some sort of special protocol for girl–houses; it’s not exactly an issue he ever gave much thought, and there could be rules he’s not aware of. Girl–house rules seem like they might be particularly terrifying.

“Just come in here,” Brittany says. “I film in my bedroom, but that’s okay. Santana doesn’t mind if other people see my bed as long as they don’t take their clothes off in it.”

If it were possible to die from being horrified, Casey would drop dead. Perhaps he could have a nice, tidy little heart attack. He could also choke to death on his gum as an alternative. Instead, he feels his face turning red, and he keeps on being alive and horrified, until he’s startled by the largest cat he’s ever seen in his life. It hauls itself up onto Brittany’s bed using its claws and proceeds to glare at Casey.

“Oh, good, Lord Tubbington made it just in time!” Brittany squeals. “Lord Tubbington, this is Casey. Casey, this is Lord Tubbington.”

“I don’t have to… shake his paw or something, right?” Casey asks.

“No, but you can feed him a pudding cup later if you want.”

“No. I don’t want that,” Casey says. “I really don’t want that.” Brittany nods her head like she’s agreeing with him, but deep down, Casey suspects he’s going to end up feeding that cat a pudding cup later, whether he wants to or not.

Brittany opens the drawer by her bed and pulls out a plastic bag. She reaches inside and then tosses another Blowpop to Casey. “Here, I have emergency candy.”

As Casey unwraps the Blowpop, Brittany relocates Lord Tubbington to a chair on the other side of her room, then pats the seat next to him, looking at Casey expectantly. Casey does his best not to sigh or look like he’s anything other than absolutely overjoyed to be interviewed in a girl’s bedroom while sitting next to a cat that looks completely willing to rend and devour human flesh if the pudding cups run out. He settles himself into the chair while Brittany sets up her camera, and eats his Blowpop while she films her intro, gives some strange news updates about what’s happening in Lima and the surrounding cities, and then introduces Casey as “Casey, the fastest swimmer I’ve ever met.”

When she’s done with that, she turns to Casey, and says, “So, Casey. How do you feel about the militarization of dolphins?”

Casey’s never really thought about dolphins being militarized, and he’s not sure that’s actually a real thing, so he scrambles to come up with an answer that doesn’t sound too stupid. “Um. I think it’s, um… bad. For the dolphins.”

Brittany looks pleased by his answer and dives right into her next question. “Swimming. Is it as political as the Olympics make it appear?”

As Casey tries to figure out how to answer that question, he makes the decision that he will never, _ever_ speak of this to David.

 

**Thursday, August 2nd, 2012: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Dave’s standing by the door with Ty and Coop, waiting on Danny to finish getting rid of his trash, when his phone lets him know he has a new text. He pulls it out without comment and starts to read the text.

_I can hold my breath longer than anybody else on the team_

Before Dave can type out a response, a second text comes across, this one just two words: _Without dying_. Dave laughs out loud and shakes his head slightly, then finally starts to respond.

_What, you mean ghosts can’t text? My worldview is shattered, Case._

_No, ghosts can totally text but if you die then it doesn’t count as holding your breath the longest_

_I am absurdly reassured. Speaking of absurd, on the dinner menu tonight: tofu crab cakes_

_You made that up. That’s not a real thing David_

_It shouldn’t be. But it was on the sign. I even asked. Some really enthusiastic man started talking about innocent crabs and over-crabbing_

Before Casey responds again, Ty elbows Dave in the side, and Dave looks up to see that Danny’s finally ready for the four of them to walk back towards the dorm. “Who’re you texting?” Ty asks.

“Your girlfriends.” Dave shrugs nonchalantly.

“That’s cold, Special K,” Coop says. “You know Danny’s still holding out hope about that volleyball player.”

“You’re texting with Heather?” Danny almost whines. 

“No, the whole volleyball team.” Dave shrugs. “Except for a few of the seniors, they’re too focused on getting out.” He smiles too smugly as his phone alerts him of a new text once more.

_Now I’m really worried about crabs. Does Tech have a crab problem?_

_No, but you should look up Sam on Facebook and ask him about jock itch_. Dave laughs as they wait on the corner to cross North Avenue, making a mental note that wherever their fifty-year high school reunion is, he’s going, and he’s going to ask Evans about jock itch cream.

“No, really, are you texting Heather?” Danny asks again. 

“I probably couldn’t pick Heather out of a line-up,” Dave admits. “Much less tell you her number.”

Dave’s phone chirps again, this time reading _No I don’t think I’ll ask Sam about jock itch thanks_.

“Whoever it is must be funny,” Ty says, unlocking the main doors. “Special K just keeps on a’grinning.”

“Tell us who it is!” Danny insists. 

“You are such gossips,” Dave says.

“I bet I can guess,” Coop says. “If I guess, you’ll tell me, right?”

“I’ll even change the toilet paper roll, how about that?”

“No setting it on top, either. You’ve gotta really put the roll on, with the paper facing the right way and everything,” Coop says.

“Sure.” Dave nods solemnly. “I’ll do it the _correct_ way.”

“Then I think it’s probably… Casey.” Coop looks inordinately pleased with himself. 

“Wow. Gentlemen, a real observer here,” Dave says sarcastically. “How did you figure it out, Coop?”

“’Cause Casey’s the only person I’ve ever heard you talk to,” Coop says. “Other than your dad.”

Dave mentally facepalms, instead nodding and following Danny into their room. “Congratulations. One roll of toilet paper.” He flops onto the couch and pulls out his phone as Ty turns on the television almost without thinking about it. 

_Too bad. It’s a funny story. And luckily we don’t have that problem here._ He rolls his eyes at himself as soon as he hits send. 

_I’m more worried about this crab problem you supposedly don’t have there_

_GA Aquarium isn’t far. Talk to them?_

_LOL now I have a mental pic of all the crabs skittering across Atlanta and onto the football field. OH NO DAVID WATCH OUT FOR THE CRABS!_

Dave laughs out loud again, because he can mentally picture Casey’s arms waving as he attempts to warn Dave about the crabs. 

_Shhh. Secret freshman plan to get the starters benched. Don’t tell anyone!_

_Do you think the crabs will get redshirted?_

_Undoubtedly_

_Do you think they can find red shirts that are small enough?_

_Build-A-Bear_

_Do your red shirts have a front pocket? You could just keep the crabs in there_

Dave blinks, then shakes his head. For whatever reason, Casey must actually think they have to wear red shirts – either that, or he’s really extending the joke. Dave decides to err on the side of extending the joke.

_They pinch, though._

_Maybe you could wear green shirts instead?_

_That’s the no-contact jerseys. Usually it’s the quarterbacks that wear those._ If Casey really does think they wear red shirts, this is just going to confuse the issue further. A couple of minutes pass, during which Dave weighs in on what channel they should or shouldn’t watch that night, and then Danny asks if they should attempt to do homework. They’re all chorusing “NO” at him when Dave’s phone finally chirps again.

_But if nobody’s allowed to touch them how do they play football?_

Dave grins to himself. _Just during practice, Case. Not during the game._

_Maybe I need football lessons. If you have some free time this week you can call me and I’ll take lots of notes_

_Deal._ Dave has a mental image of Casey trying to _play_ football—defensive back, maybe—and it’s probably much better if Dave attempts to explain it. _At least the scoring’s simpler than some sports._

_Better for you to do it or else Rick might try and then I’ll be a hundred times more confused!_

_Exactly. Beginning to wonder if there’s something about the name Daniel, actually. Danny’s trying to convince us the guy on this TV show was in M.A.S.H., but he wasn’t even born when M.A.S.H. was on. Danny doesn’t understand, because he’s seen M.A.S.H. on TV, not DVD. Reruns._

_Keep him away from the Knight Rider reruns then. The talking car might confuse him_

Dave laughs so loudly that the other three stop and stare at him. “You okay there, Special K?” Ty asks. 

“Oh, I’m good. Peachy, even,” Dave snorts. “You three go right on back to discussing volleyball girls and their boobs.” He doesn’t look up to see their faces, and the sad thing is, he wasn’t really listening to their conversation; it just seems to be a favorite topic. 

_Will do, Case. Got any tips on time management? I can’t believe I have to write a paper about it._

_Hmm. Yes. Don’t spend so much time texting your friend back in Lima_

_Lol, okay. Thanks, friend back in Lima._ Dave stands up and heads to his room, making it all the way to his desk before he hears Danny. 

“Hey, where’d Special K go?”

 

**Saturday/Sunday, August 4th–5th, 2012: Atlanta, Georgia — Ty**

“Hey, Special K, where the fuck’s that chili?” Coop shouts.

“Don’t get your panties twisted, Coop!” Special K yells back. “Karofsky Chili takes _time_. And a lot of meat.”

“Yeah, it’d have to,” Coop mutters under his breath. “Feed a whole big Mormon family the size of him.”

Ty snorts and shakes his head. “Danny’d better hurry back if he wants any left after you get through eating, Coop.”

“I’ll leave him a little bit if the Cokes are still cold when he gets here,” Coop shrugs.

“You two are worse than Cheerios,” Special K grouses from the kitchen. “And I’m not saying it’s done until we have pop to go with it.”

Ty starts to respond when he hears a loud ringing. “What’s that?”

“Oh, fuck, it’s my phone, would you grab it?” Special K says. “Just tell whoever it is I’ll be there in a sec.”

“Sure,” Ty agrees, walking over to the emptiest–looking room in the apartment. Seriously, maybe he really is a Mormon. Maybe his family shunned him for playing football instead of riding a bike with a tie on. He spots the phone and smirks to himself when he sees that it’s from ‘Casey’. Score! The mystery Mormon virgin almost–girlfriend. This’ll be great.

“Sp— Karofsky’s phone, Tyler Davis speaking.”

“Oh. Um. Is David there?” The voice that answers is _not_ what Ty is expecting. For starters, it’s a guy.

“Yeah, Special K’s making us some Karofsky Chili. Sooo, you’re Casey?” Maybe Casey has a brother or something, using her phone.

“Yes! That’s me.” Also, it’s a _dude_ on the other end of the line, an excited sounding dude.

“Well, I’m Ty. I have the room next to Special K’s, though I guess you don’t call him that.” Ty wonders if Casey will explain about the Mormon shunning. Maybe Casey helped Special K escape from his cult or whatever.

“Oh, no, I don’t call him that. I just call him David.”

“Hey, Ty, who was it?” Special K yells out.

“Oh, just Casey!” Ty yells back, covering the mouthpiece.

“Oh.” Special K sounds really damn surprised, and there’s a pause before Ty can hear him walking out of the kitchen, looking kind of anxious. “Uh, tell him I’m making chili and I’ll get it in a second. You can just put the phone there.” He gestures to a side table.

“Nah, it’s cool,” Ty says, grinning. “So, Casey, Special K is making us Karofsky Chili so he can’t grab the phone just yet.”

“Oh, did he want me to call him back later? I can call him back later. Or he can call me back later. Either one.” Casey, who is definitely a dude, is also kind of intense, and talking fast.

“He said he’ll get you in just a moment. You ever had Karofsky Chili? Are we in for the treat he says we are?”

“Karofsky Chili is, um. Well, it’s very meaty. That’s what it is. There’s a lot of meat. Um. In that chili. Cattle ranch in a bowl.”

“Yeah, I went to Publix with him when he bought the ingredients. Okay, Coop and I paid for it.” Ty shrugs. “So, Special K doesn’t say much about home. Did his parents like, disown him for coming to Tech or something?”

“Um. What?”

“We were thinking maybe he was Mormon or something? Skipped the bike riding gig?”

“No, David’s Lutheran. I don’t think there’s a bike riding component to that. It hasn’t ever been mentioned when I’ve gone or anything.”

“Well, damn.” Ty frowns, because that was the best theory so far. “So what do Ohioans do for fun?” It’s pretty hard to get information out of Casey. Who’s a dude.

“So, um. Did David just want to call me back later? I’m home for the rest of the night, so he can just. He can call. If he wants to.”

“You and Special K play football together?”

Casey laughs. “Nooo. No. I didn’t play any football. Just David. Not me.”

“Throw me a bone here, man. Special K doesn’t talk about anything. Are you sure you’re real? I’m beginning to think he had his memory wiped before he came here.”

“Oh! I saw a movie about that! I don’t think that happened to David, though. I’m pretty sure I’m real. I think so, anyway. If I’m not real, I guess. Um. Probably I wouldn’t be talking to you. I’m talking to you, right?”

“Government could be paying you to pretend that you’re Special K’s friend from ‘back home’ when really he’s not from Lima, Ohio at all.” Ty shrugs. “Stranger things have happened.”

“Ty, are you _still_ talking to Casey? Leave him alone!”

“I’m making friends!”

“Is that David? Should I call back later?”

“Nope, he was just saying he’s almost done!” Ty lies. “C’mon, tell me about your bustling hometown. Or email me an embarrassing picture of our friend.”

“I don’t think I have any of those. David always looks nice in photographs.”

“Is he paying you not to give us information? Maybe Special K’s the government agent!”

Casey laughs again. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to tell you. There might be rules about that. We haven’t discussed them. Maybe, um, mystery is important?”

“Well, damn, you’re a tough nut to crack. Good thing I’m not going into law enforcement, I suck at interrogations!” Ty laughs. “Well, fine, tell me about Special K’s high school or his friends or something, if you won’t talk about him.”

“He went to McKinley. So did his friends. Well, so _do_ some of them still. Not all of them. Some of them are in college.”

“Yeah? Any of his old teammates playing in college, too? Big senior class on the team last year?”

“Yes, Finn went to Wisconsin and Sam went, um. Somewhere. I don’t remember. Florida? No, I think that was just Brittany who’s going to Florida. Anyway, Finn’s at the University of Wisconsin, and Sam is somewhere that is not in Ohio.”

“Brittany? That another one of Special K’s friends?”

“Yes, she’s our friend. She was a Cheerio, but now she’s going off to join the circus at FSU. I think she’s going to learn the trapeze or something.”

“Trapeze? Sounds like she must be flexible.” Ty grins to himself. Maybe this Brittany was more than a friend of Special K’s, and FSU isn’t far.

“Well, that’s what her shirt said. I can’t say for sure.”

“Shirt? Huh.” Ty shakes his head. Maybe all people from Ohio are like this, closemouthed about things. Ty’s mama never meets a stranger, and that’s how _she_ puts it. All Ty’s got is Casey’s a dude, there’s a cheerleader – Brittany at FSU, a Finn at Wisconsin, and a Sam somewhere in NCAA football.

“Okay, okay,” Special K says, wiping his hand. “Give me that.” He swipes the phone from Ty with a roll of his eyes. “Hey, Case. Sorry about Ty.”

“Sorry?” Ty says. “Why are you sorry?” he adds, then walks back into the room where Coop’s sitting. He drops down on the couch with a thud. “Get this, Coop. _Casey’s a dude_.”

“What?” Coop says, his mouth dropping open. “You’re kidding me. A _dude_? What about the Mormon virgin? You sure that’s the _same_ Casey?”

“How many Caseys are there in Ohio that know Special K?” Ty shrugs. “I found out that Casey’s a dude, he’s had Karofsky chili, and Casey doesn’t play football. Also that Special K’s a Lutheran or something, _not_ Mormon. Oh! And there’s a cheerleader at FSU. Brittany.”

“Is that his girlfriend? And seriously, a dude?” Coop doesn’t look like he quite believes what he’s hearing. “Maybe you got mixed up, Ty. Sure doesn’t sound like he’s talking to a dude, any time I’ve heard him.”

“I asked!” Ty defends himself quietly. “’Cause I thought, you know, maybe this dude on the phone is Casey’s brother or something.”

“But it wasn’t? It was Casey, as a dude.” Coop shakes his head. “Now I’m even more confused than I was. No Mormon virgin, no Mormons at all, so how come he’s so how he is about everything?” He shakes his head again. “A _dude_.”

Ty nods. “A dude. Oh, I got two other names. Friends, teammates, something. Sam and Finn.”

“Also both dudes,” Coop says, grinning. “Special K knows a lot of dudes. Doesn’t talk to all of them on the phone like that, though.”

“Maybe Special K’s scared of girls or something.” Ty shrugs. “But, yeah, they’re also playing college ball.”

“But Casey, the dude, is not a football player, and he calls Special K all the time,” Coop says. “Yeah, I’m thinking it’s definitely that Special K’s scared of girls, Ty. That’s totally it.”

“Hey, next time Casey calls, _you_ can pump the guy for information.”

“Oh yeah, I’m pretty sure Special K’s gonna let us answer his phone again after all of that,” Coop snorts. “Yeah, I’ll definitely make sure to answer the phone next time.”

The door to the apartment opens and they can hear Danny’s muffled greeting to Special K before the refrigerator door opens and closes. Danny walks in and throws himself in an empty chair. “Special K talking to the Mormon virgin again?”

“Bad news, Danny,” Coop says, sadly. “There’s no Mormon virgin mystery girl.”

“Wait, what?” Danny screws his face up in a frown. “No Mormon virgin? He made up Casey?”

“No, man. Ty, tell him!”

“Casey’s a _dude_ , Danny.”

“Naw. You’re messin’ with me.”

“God’s honest truth,” Coop says. “He’s a dude. A dude who doesn’t play football. Oh, and get this. He’s not even a Mormon.”

“Casey _could_ be virginal. Are dudes virginal?” Ty snorts. “I didn’t ask.”

“A virginal non-Mormon dude. Well, holy shit.” Danny shifts his baseball cap. “Huh.”

“Chili’s ready!” Special K yells out, then appears in the doorway when none of them move. “Uh, guys?”

The three of them turn and stare. “Special K,” Ty begins, then stops, looking at Coop.

“So Casey’s a dude, huh?” Coop asks.

“Yeahhh,” Special K responds slowly. “Thought you knew that.”

“We thought he was a Mormon virgin. A _girl_ Mormon virgin,” Coop says. “I mean, when you were on the phone with him, you—” He looks at Ty for backup or something.

“Actually, we thought you were some kind of Mormon, too,” Danny admits. “Thought maybe they kicked you out for not going around in a tie for five years or whatever.”

“Shunned, Danny,” Ty says. “Shunned him. For not riding a bike.”

Special K starts laughing. “And they say girls are gossips. Come eat chili, idiots.”

“So,” Ty says, grinning at Coop and Danny behind Special K’s back. “I hear this chili’s like a cattle ranch in a bowl?” Coop snickers, and Danny just looks confused, but as Ty’s mama says, bless his heart, he often looks confused.

Special K turns around slowly and stares at Ty, then shakes his head, grinning ruefully. “It’s been described that way.”

“Yeah, by Casey. Who’s a dude.” Ty keeps grinning. “But hey, I found out more about you in ten minutes with Casey than I have since June from you.”

“You did?” Danny looks interested.

“Yeah, Special K here? Has a friend name Brittany, and also two fellow teammates named Sam and Finn.” Ty shrugs. “See? Gold mine of information.”

“Is Brittany a Mormon virgin?” Coop asks.

“Ran away to join the circus at FSU, apparently,” Ty starts to answer, but he’s drowned out by Special K’s laughter.

“Brittany? A Mormon virgin?” He shakes his head. “Ah, damn. That’s a good one. I’ve gotta remember that one. You know what? Look up _Fondue for Two_ on YouTube.”

“I’ll do it right now!” Danny announces, running out of the room and returning with his laptop. “Get me a bowl, dude,” he says to Coop as he types in ‘Fondue for Two’. “Holy shit she’s hot! And who’s that with her?”

“Yeah, I’d like to fondue _her_ ,” Coop says. “You know these girls, Special K? You’ve been holding out on us!”

Special K snorts. “Yeah, good luck with ’Tana. You’re not exactly her type.”

“What? She like ’em big like you?” Coop snorts.

“Try blonde and a little busty, like Brittany.”

“Wait, so… Brittany’s a lesbian? And Casey’s a dude?” Coop squints his eyes a little as he shakes his head. “This is somehow throwing off my whole worldview here, man.”

“Brittany’s not a lesbian, she’s bi. _Santana_ is a lesbian.” Special K rolls his eyes, like that should have been obvious or something. “Watch _Fondue for Two_ , that’ll tell you plenty.”

“Guess we found what to do after chili!” Danny says with a grin. “So let’s start with the oldest and see what we can learn about our own non-Mormon Special K.”

 

Two bowls of very meaty Karofsky chili for each of them, and about thirty ‘episodes’ of _Fondue for Two_ later, Ty feels like they’ve learned a _lot_ about Lima, Ohio, though he’s pretty sure he’s never going to need to tell someone what Lord Tubbington’s favorite food is – even if ‘vanilla pudding cups with sprinkles added’ is a weird favorite food for a cat.

“This is the most bizarre set of shit I’ve ever seen in my entire life,” Coop declares. “How many are left?”

“Well, that’s Britt,” Special K shrugs.

“Just two. August 1st and August 3rd. Yesterday. Well, it was yesterday, except now it’s tomorrow.” Danny frowns. “Time’s hard, guys.”

“Danny, you think chewing gum’s hard,” Coop snorts.

“Naw, just chewing gum while I’m walking.” Danny rolls his eyes.

“Well, let’s see it,” Ty yawns. “Who is our special guest? I swear if she brings back the guitar and the piano.”

“Hooooly shit, y’all,” Coop says, with a whoop. “Look at who she says she’s bringing on next! Hey, Special K! You seen this one yet?”

Special K looks up from his laptop, startled. “What?” He stares at the screen. “Huh. Nope. Case didn’t say a word.”

“Redhead, damn,” Ty laughs. “He’d fry down here.”

“Definitely a dude, though,” Coop says, shaking his head. “But damn, you could play dot-to-dot on him.”

“Uh-huh,” Special K grunts, sounding distracted. “Swims.”

“I think that cat’s almost as big as he is,” Coop says. “He’s not real big, is he?”

Special K shrugs a little. “Lord Tubbington’s the biggest cat I’ve ever seen.”

“Yeah, but he’s not a mountain lion or anything. I’m just saying, Casey’s not a real big dude, is all,” Coop says, looking back at the screen. “Aw, shit, son! We got us a blusher!”

“You’d blush too if you got cornered by Brittany,” Special K laughs. “I swear, I don’t know how I escaped without her dragging me on that show.”

“What kind of questions are these?” Danny shakes his head. “I’m even more confused than I have been.”

“Why’s she think he’s sad?” Coop asks. “Oh look, there he goes again! Man alive, that kid’s a blusher.”

“Wouldn’t know what that’s like,” Ty snorts. “Surprised she didn’t make him bring a kickboard or something to get interviewed, too.”

“Why’s she keep giving him more candy?” Danny asks. “Makes it hard for him to answer.”

Special K shrugs again. “Casey likes candy. A lot. Especially red–flavored candy. I bet she bribed him to get him on there.”

“Red flavored?” Coop asks.

“Hey, I don’t know.” Special K grins. “That’s just what he calls it.”

“You mean cherry or strawberry or whatever, right?” Ty asks.

“Nope. Red–flavored.”

“Oh, hey, he’s talking about you now, Special K!” Coop leans a little closer to the screen. “Huh. How about that.”

“It’s like I know him or something,” Special K deadpans. “Like we’re friends.”

“Yeah, it’s _like_ you’re friends,” Coop says. “Maybe all that red dye’s why he’s turning red like that. Maybe he should lay off the red flavor.”

“I’m starting to regret telling you guys to look up _Fondue for Two_.”

“Naw, this is great!” Danny grins. “The little updates at the beginning are cute, too.”

“I wish all the news was delivered like this,” Coop says. “She should go into journalism.”

“You just haven’t seen her dance,” Special K says matter–of–factly.

“What, ballet or something?”

“I dunno what it’s called.” Special K shrugs. “I just know she’s good.”

“You know, Florida’s not too far. You should get her to come up and visit us some weekend,” Coop says. “Bet you two’d like to see each other, right?”

“That’s your only motivation?” Ty laughs. “Don’t do it, Special K!”

“What? Come on, why wouldn’t he want to have his pretty friend up here for a weekend?”

“Even I can tell you want to meet his ‘pretty friend’,” Danny chuckles. “You think Brittany here would like ol’ Coop, Special K?”

Special K shakes his head solemnly. “Before she was dating Santana, she was dating Artie. Remember seeing him?”

“Oh, the dude in the wheelchair’s her ex?” Coop looks disappointed. “Guess I’m not her any kind of type.”

“Oh, and she dated Kurt for, I dunno. Three or four days, sophomore year.”

“He in a wheelchair, too?” Coop asks.

“Which one was Kurt? Was he on there?” Ty asks.

“No, but she linked to the video of him back in May.” Special K smirks and types something into his laptop, and then turns the screen towards the other three of them. “That’s Kurt.”

They all stare at the screen, listening to the dude talking about enduring things, and Ty shakes his head slowly. “She dated him?” Special K just nods, grinning.

“He’s _really_ gay,” Coop observes. “Like, ice skater gay.”

“You think?” Special K snorts. “One of the guys at McKinley calls him ‘Brass’. As in, ‘big brass balls’.”

“Well, I’m not an expert or anything, but I’m thinking those big brass balls aren’t keeping him from being gay,” Coop says. “Guess he can manage both.”

“Kurt Hummel, HBIC.” Special K shrugs. “Or so ’Tana says.”

“You know a lot of gay people, Special K,” Coop says. “Brittany, that ’Tana hottie, this guy,” he points at the screen. “And… Casey?” Coop tacks the last one on with a tone like he’s not quite sure about it.

Special K raises an eyebrow and grunts non-committally, then pauses before answering. “I know a lot of LGBTQ people that are _out_ ,” he finally says. “You probably just don’t realize you know them.”

“I dunno, Special K,” Danny says doubtfully. “I don’t think there’s any gay people in Maryville.”

“There’s a gay couple in our HOA. One of them, Frank, is the treasurer. Oh, and Alice and Maggie and their kid.” Ty shrugs. “Special K’s probably right.”

“We have one in Peachtree City,” Coop says. “He works at the beauty parlor where my mom and her friends go.”

“See?” Special K says, like that settles it. “Go ahead and fire up yesterday’s. Who knows what news tidbit Britt has for us.”

 

**Wednesday, August 8th, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Miles**

Miles plunks the reusable water bottle onto the bench in front of Coach and announces, “My Ma sent this for you.”

Coach looks up, almost dubiously. “That’s not water.”

“No ma’am, it is not,” Miles agrees. “It’s juice. Ever since my Ma bought that juicer, she’s been all about the juice. Juice morning, noon, and night. This juice has mangoes and some kind of chili pepper in it. She thought you’d enjoy it.”

Coach almost brightens when he mentions the chili pepper, and she nods as she picks up the bottle. “Well, that’s very thoughtful of her, Brown.” She unscrews the top and takes a sip. “Yeah, that’s real good!”

“Oh yeah, Ma’s juice is great,” Miles says. “Well, most of the time it’s great. Sometimes she puts some stuff in there that’s downright disconcerting. You oughta ask Cherry about the radishes.”

“ _Casey_ drinks this?” Coach asks, stressing Casey’s name yet again, because she keeps trying to convince Miles not to call him Cherry.

“Not with the chili peppers in it or anything. Ma knows _Cherry_ doesn’t like spicy stuff,” Miles says, ignoring Coach’s attempts at convincing him. “But Ma likes to use him as a guinea pig for her juice recipes, and it’s not like anybody can really tell Ma no.”

Coach looks up at Miles appraisingly. “So he drinks juice like this—without the spicy stuff—when he has dinner at your house?”

Miles narrows his eyes slightly and looks at Coach for a long while before answering. “Well, everybody who comes over has to drink the juice, because of Ma. Like I said, nobody tells her no.”

“Oh, I thought he was eating dinner there most nights,” Coach says, maybe a little casually. 

“Yeah, he’s over for dinner most nights,” Miles says. “Ma doesn’t mind it or anything, if that’s what you’re worried about. You can talk to her if you want to. She’ll tell you.”

“That’s good.” Coach nods. “Yeah, has Casey complained about his stomach hurting or anything lately?”

Now, that’s a strange sort of question. “No,” Miles says, side–eyeing Coach a little. “Like I said, Ma doesn’t give him the spicy stuff. He seems just fine to me.”

“So you haven’t noticed him getting skinnier, at all?” Coach hums to herself. “Or pulling up his pants? Well.”

Miles knows she probably doesn’t mean it like it sounds, but he’s still quick to say, “I don’t know anything about his pants.”

“Hmm.” Coach doesn’t seem to think anything’s weird about noticing Casey’s pants or not. “Well. You say he eats a good dinner at your place?”

Well, shit. It’s one thing to talk around Coach’s questions, but it’s something else to lie. Of course Casey doesn’t eat a good dinner, but eventually people will start leaving him alone enough and he’ll eat when he wants to. That won’t happen if Miles tells Coach the truth, though, so he decides that a little lie for the sake of protecting Casey from everybody trying to get all up in his business isn’t such a bad thing.

“Yeah, he eats just fine when he’s over at my house,” Miles says. “He does just fine.”

“Well, that’s good to hear, good to hear.” Coach smiles at Miles. “Make sure and tell your ma thanks for the juice, okay Brown?”

“Oh, I sure will, Coach,” Miles promises, giving her a bright smile. It really wasn’t even that big of a lie, really. After all, Casey gets what’s pretty much more of a smoothie than a cup of juice, and for _Casey_ , that’s a good meal. Sure, Casey’s lost a little weight since Karofsky went away to school, but that’s just a combination of the swimming, the pining over Karofsky, and everybody trying to manage every single minute of that poor boy’s life. Things’ll settle in eventually.

 

**Saturday, August 11th, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

Something feels wrong. Wrong and weird.

At first, Casey can’t quite put his finger on what exactly feels off, but he knows it’s _something_ , and his stomach starts twisting into knots, and his heart starts pounding. Something is definitely wrong, and the feeling only expands and increases as he gets closer and closer to Dayton. He looks over at Miles to ask him if he’s got a weird, wrong feeling, too, when Casey suddenly realizes what’s wrong.

Miles isn’t talking. Miles has hardly said a word past “hey, Cherry” since Casey picked him up at two-thirty. Mostly Miles just talks and talks, and Casey listens and sometimes nods his head and makes a noise or says “yes” or “no,” but today, Miles isn’t saying anything at all. He just stares out the window with his arm propped on the door, and it’s one of the single most disconcerting things Casey has ever seen in his entire life.

“Miles?” Casey asks. “Are you feeling alright?”

Miles looks slightly startled, though Casey’s not sure if it’s because of what he said or because he said something at all. Miles slowly looks over at Casey, and the expression on his face is nearly as weird as his silence. If Casey had to put a name to it, he’d say that Miles looks almost guilty, but Miles never feels guilty. It’s just part of his charm.

“Me? Yeah, I’m feeling alright.” Miles is quiet again for a moment, then he asks, “How about you, Cherry? You feeling alright?”

Casey nods his head. “Sure. I’m not the one being weird and quiet, though.”

“I’m just thinking,” Miles says. “Unlike some of you people—mainly Foots, fool that he is—I actually do some thinking from time to time.”

“Well, what are you thinking about?” Casey asks.

“When’d you get so nosey?” Miles snaps back at him, and Casey sinks down a little in the Lemon’s driver’s seat.

“Sorry,” he says quietly. Miles doesn’t say anything in response, so after a few minutes, Casey asks him, “Did I do something wrong?”

Miles looks startled all over again. “What? What are— no, Cherry, you didn’t do anything. I’m just thinking, alright? It’s nothing. Well, it’s probably nothing. But you didn’t do anything.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. It’s not you. It’s just people trying to mind other people’s business again,” Miles says, shaking his head.

“They always do,” Casey says. He can hear the bitterness in his own voice.

“Yeah,” Miles agrees. “They really do.”

They don’t say much for the rest of the drive to the center, and when they get there, Miles disappears with one of his “new friends” almost right away. For the first time, Casey envies Miles being how he is. It must be nice, being able to forget everything and get lost in someone else—even if it’s just for a little while—without feeling guilty and overthinking things. 

 

**Sunday, August 12th, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Rick**

“But I still don’t see why you can’t do it,” Rick says, while Casey’s laying out all these stacks and stacks of files and folders all over the place in Coach Beiste’s office. “You’re the one set all this stuff up, how come you can’t be the one that manages it?”

“I already have a job,” Casey says. “I make coffee. Anyway, all I did was set up the filing system, because it was a mess before. I don’t really want to file football things all year long. I don’t do football things. I do swimming things.”

“Well, that’s true,” Rick says. The idea of Casey on a football field is pretty funny, even if Casey had talked that one time about learning how to kick. He never did really learn how. “Still.”

“And Aunt Shannon said it counts as, um. Sports management, I think? And that’s a good thing! She said it was a very good thing,” Casey says. Honestly, Rick isn’t sure if he believes Casey or not, because sometimes Casey just says stuff that sounds like a good reason for doing or not doing something, whether it’s really true or not.

“Sports management, huh?” Rick asks. “I don’t know about that. Are you sure that’s something I’m gonna need?”

“Oh, yes, Aunt Shannon definitely thinks it’s a good idea,” Casey insists, and now Rick’s pretty certain Casey _is_ lying, or at least embellishing the truth a little bit, because of that look that flashes across his face real quick, the one that sort of reminds Rick of the raccoons in the traps on his uncle’s property back in Kentucky. “So, here. Pick up those files. No, not the green ones, the red ones.”

Rick puts down the green folders and picks up the red ones, and Casey starts explaining the different workout systems inside the red folders, and how they’re all cross-referenced with green folders that have meal plans and recipes, and how all of those are cross-referenced with the yellow folders that Casey has set up for each of the players. The yellow folders are all labeled by the player’s last name and his number, and the workout and meal folders have the numbers, too, and once Casey’s spread out a few of the folders to show how they all match up, Rick starts feeling like maybe he could manage this after all.

“And then the yellow files just go into the manilla folders by position, and then into the correct hanging folder,” Casey says. “The dark green are for offense, the brown are for defense, and then that white one at the end is just for you!”

Sure enough, the white hanging folder is labeled “KICKER,” and since Rick’s the only one of those, his yellow folder is the only folder inside a manilla folder that’s also labeled “KICKER.” It’s not all that likely that the team’s gonna ever have more than one kicker, so maybe it doesn’t need its own hanging folder at all, but it’s kind of nice of Casey to set up a whole folder just for Rick.

“Well, alright,” Rick says, finally. “I guess that doesn’t look so hard. Sports management, you said?”

“Yes,” Casey says, nodding his head. “Sports management. For college, Rick. You can put it on your transcript or resume or, um. On something else, probably.”

Rick takes a moment to think it over. It shouldn’t take up too much of his time, and it’s always a good idea to stay on Coach’s good side, plus maybe what Casey’s saying about transcripts and stuff is true. “Alright, then,” Rick says. “You can tell Coach I’ll do it, I guess. No harm in trying it, anyway.”

“Oh, that’s great!” Casey sorta bounces up on his toes a little, like he’s real happy that Rick’s going along with his plan. “I’ll tell Aunt Shannon!”

“You’re still taking me over to Alicia’s now, right?” Rick asks, because sometimes Casey says he’s going to take Rick somewhere, but then they end up someplace completely different.

“Yes, because me and Miles are going to see _The Campaign_ ,” Casey says. He makes a face like he’s thinking, then adds, “You and Alicia could come, too.”

“Yeah, that’s a great idea!” Rick says. “And hey, I’ll call up Taylor and Alicia can call up her friend Maci, and that’d be a real good chance for the two of them two talk to each other and hang out.”

Casey makes that face again, the raccoon trap face, and says, “Oh, yeah. That’ll be, uh. Great. Just great.”

Even though Casey doesn’t really seem all that keen on it, Rick thinks it is a great idea. It’s almost like a triple date, if everybody just ignores the fact that Casey and Brown aren’t a couple. Taylor and Maci aren’t really a couple yet, either, though, so at least nobody has to feel like the odd man out. Well, except maybe for Casey, because of the girls. 

 

**Friday, August 17th, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Shannon**

Shannon doesn’t even look up from the paperwork in front of her when the house line rings, just picks up the handset and props it between her head and shoulder. “Shannon Beiste-Desmond.”

“Hi, Shannon. This is Brody Brumelo. You got a minute?”

“Hey, Brum. Sure thing. How’s it going?”

Brum’s silent on the other end for a beat, then he sighs before saying, “Well, to be honest with you, Shannon, I’m a little worried about Casey.”

Shannon pushes her papers out of the way, mentally shifting from ‘fellow coach’ to ‘guardian’. “What about him, exactly?” she asks, because it’s possible there’s been a problem at swim that Casey’s not mentioned. Casey doesn’t exactly go into much detail.

“Have you noticed how much weight he’s lost this summer?” Brum asks. 

“Yeah, I noticed him dropping a few,” Shannon admits. “Figured at least part of it was stress–related, you know? It’s not unheard of for someone to lose ten pounds that way.”

“Maybe so,” Brum says, “but I think we’re talking more like fifteen or twenty here, Shannon. Kid hasn’t got any meat left on him, and he didn’t have much to begin with.”

Shannon frowns; she’ll be the first to admit she hasn’t seen Casey around as much of the summer as she would have expected. “How’s his times looking?” she asks, not because she cares about his times so much as what they might indicate. 

“Getting better and better. That’s the thing that threw me at first. Now I’m starting to wonder, though…” Brum trails off and then says, “Has he seemed really fixated on the conditioning?”

“Well, he goes for his run every day. Even if it’s raining.” Shannon pauses to think. “He’s good friends with one of my players. Stands to reason they could be working out together. I know he’s been drinking some kind of vegetable juice Brown’s mom makes, and a lot of the kids do pay attention to their nutrition when they increase their conditioning.”

“You know how it is, though. Some kids, they get too hung up on it, start working out too much,” Brum says. “Start pushing themselves too hard, thinking they’re gonna bulk up fast, and end up burning themselves out instead.”

“Yeah, had a kid do that last year,” Shannon agrees. “Lawrence. Good kid, but had to sit out a few games. Hard to imagine Casey wanting to bulk up, but that could be it. I’ll keep a closer eye on how much he’s working out. School should help curtail it a little.”

“I just want to see him get it straightened out before the first time trials in September,” Brum says. “He’s a great swimmer, I just don’t like what I’m seeing with his weight. If you figure anything out that you think I need to know about, give me a call. ”

“Will do,” Shannon assures him. “Thanks for letting me know, Brum.”

“If I don’t hear from you, I’ll see you next week,” Brum says, and then hangs up.

Shannon stares at the phone for a minute before carefully setting it down. “Well,” she says out loud, sighing a little and staring blankly at her paperwork. Monty comes wandering into the kitchen and sits down across from her at the table.

“Who was on the phone?” Monty asks. “Is something amiss?”

“Brum,” Shannon answers. “The swim coach. He thinks Casey’s lost more than just ten or so pounds.”

“Hmm.” Monty reaches across the table and rests his hand on top of hers. “That’s not good at all. Has he spoken with Casey about it?”

“I’m not sure. He was thinking that maybe Casey’s been working out too much, which. We don’t really see Casey enough to rule that out.”

“I can’t picture Casey lifting weights or any such thing,” Monty says. “He is over at Miles’ home quite a bit, though, so I suppose it’s possible. How much more than ten did Coach Brum say he thinks Casey has lost?”

“He thinks it’s more like fifteen to twenty since the summer started.” Shannon sighs. “And I guess he would have a better idea, visually.”

“That’s a significant percentage of his weight,” Monty says, tightening his hold on Shannon’s hand. “Should we take him to a doctor? Should we confront him about it?”

“Let’s just observe him for a week or two,” Shannon decides. “If it’s working out, school’ll keep him busy, right? And maybe we should ask him to stay around here at least one night a week.”

“I worry that curtailing his comings and goings will just make him more resentful,” Monty says, shaking his head. “He’s just such an angry boy.” He sighs again. “This is harder than I thought it would be.”

“We’re not really curtailing them at all,” Shannon feels like she has to point out. “Yeah, too bad there wasn’t one of Emma’s pamphlets or something.”

“ _So You’re Raising a Brand New Teenager!_ ” Monty suggests. “And no, he really has few limitations put on him, but compared to how he was living at Paul Karofsky’s house, with no curfew and no expectations of even checking in, not to mention what it must have been like with his parents… Well, we could probably do more, but I’m not even sure where to start.”

“No, me either.” Shannon shakes her head. “Guess we just have to start somewhere, though, and one night a week around here isn’t a bad place to start. Especially with school starting back again.”

“One night a week with quasi-parental people?” Monty says in mock horror. “I can already  
imagine the tales of woe and oppression he’ll be sharing with Miles.”

Shannon laughs. “In that case, I’ll let Casey know about it in the morning.”

 

**Monday, August 20th, 2012: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Dave's schedule for his first semester at Georgia Tech is considered a "good" one, according to several of the older guys on the football team. That seems awkward to Dave, who doesn't see what's particularly good about it. Four classes straight through on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, which doesn't leave Dave a chance to eat lunch. He figures he'll be snacking his way between and through classes. Tuesdays and Thursdays aren't actually any better, again in class until two. All five days of the week, though, he's got the time set aside for morning workouts and afternoon practices, and it was quickly apparent to Dave that _that_ was the overriding concern of the athletic academic advisers. Not whether or not Dave had time to sit down for lunch five days out of seven.

Actually, considering that even red-shirts have to be suited up and on the bench, it's more like six out of seven. Sunday lunch is really going to feel indulgent. 

But it is true that he doesn't have to rush to class at nine after morning workouts, which means that on the first day of class, he gets up, works out, showers, and then he has time to have a post-workout meal before heading toward the middle of campus for his first college class: English Composition I. 

Dave's pretty sure that means he lost some kind of contest, because otherwise he would have something more interesting. Too bad he doesn't remember entering, though that could be the actual issue.

Danny's in his section of the class, though, so the two of them sit together, and Dave tries to figure out what the syllabus means, what the curve means, and how much work he's actually going to have to do in order to pass the class. Dave's computer science class, on the other hand, mentions programs and actions that Dave doesn't understand. It says "Introduction to Computing", but Dave is pretty sure that the title of the course should be "Intermediate Programming" or something like that. He doesn't see any of the guys on the team in that class, even though he knows all the freshman, more or less, have to take it. All of them on the team had to get into the evening TA sections instead of afternoon ones. 

At least the architecture building is nearby, and Dave can feel himself relaxing as the professor enthusiastically talks about design. It's a required course, and maybe even a weed-out course, but this, at least, is what Dave _thought_ college would be like. There's even enough time at the end of class that Dave gets caught up in a quick conversation with two of his classmates, fellow architecture majors, and before he heads to calculus, he's exchanged information with Kyle and Zoe so they can plan a study group.

Of course, they might change their minds when they see Dave's availability, or lack thereof, but they might not, either, since his evenings are relatively free. 

By the time Dave slumps into a seat in Calculus I, which he's retaking under the advice of the athletic academic adviser, he's starting to feel like maybe he really _can_ balance football and a demanding major. He finishes class at two, has time to go get the last of lunch in the dining hall, and still beats most of the team onto the practice field. 

“How was the first day, Special K?” Ty greets him as he and Coop walk outside. “You get stuck in any classes with a mumbler like Coop and I did?”

“A mumbler?” Dave shakes his head. “No, no mumblers. Just that CS class is misnamed.”

“Oh yeah?” Coop asks. “How’s that?”

“It says it’s an ‘introduction to computing’ but I think it’s more like ‘advanced programming for people who do nothing but program all summer every summer’ or something.”

“That’s too bad, man,” Coop says. “Mine doesn’t look like it’ll be too hard.”

“Told you, you’re special,” Ty says, grinning broadly. “Special K gets the special real–Tech student classes.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dave grumbles, absently flipping Ty off. “Lucky me.”

“That’s the spirit!” Ty claps Dave on the shoulder. “Good attitude and morale and all that, just like Coach said.”

“I bet your other classes aren’t so bad, at least,” Coop adds. “They can’t all be bad.”

“Except for the architecture class, my schedule sucks a hairy monkey clit,” Dave retorts. “And I ate lunch at two.”

“Hairy monkey clit? That’s… colorful,” Coop says, giving Dave an inscrutable look. 

“I pride myself on my excellent vocabulary,” Dave says flatly.

 

**Tuesday, August 21st, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

For some reason, walking through the halls of McKinley is what finally hammers in the last nail of reality for Casey – David is _gone_ , he won’t meet Casey for lunch, he won’t pick him up after school. They won’t live in the same city for more than a month or two at a time for at least the next two years, and after that, who knows? Of course Casey plans to apply to Georgia Tech, but he’s not like David, he’s not the kind of material colleges are really looking for, and he might not get in.

This year is supposed to be a good one. That’s what Miles keeps telling him. Casey knows it will be better in so many ways. The new policies mean that Casey shouldn’t have to watch his back constantly and the worst offender from last year isn’t even at the school anymore. Casey doesn’t really _need_ David to look out for him.

That’s what Casey keeps telling himself anyway.

In reality, policies alone aren’t enough to make Casey stop flinching when somebody brushes by him a little hard in the hallway. Policies don’t stop him from waiting for that slam into the locker or the shove onto the ground. David’s presence—in Lima in general, even if not on campus every minute of Casey’s school day—had been enough to help Casey relax a little. The fight at the end of the year, though, combined with Johannson being allowed back to McKinley and David being three states away, leaves Casey feeling more than a little worried going into this new school year.

Maybe things can be different this year, though. As awful as that fight was, Casey _did_ stand up for himself. Swimming is teaching him that his limitations are further out than he ever realized. He may not be big, but he’s not weak. He has friends, too, some really great ones, and he has PFLAG. He doesn’t need somebody taking care of him all the time.

Besides, it’s just a few months until Thanksgiving, another month after that until Christmas, and in nine months, David will be home for the summer.

 

**Tuesday, August 21st, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Miles**

Senior year is already looking to be everything Miles had hoped. Great class schedule, appropriate level of respect from the younger guys on the team, Coach full of good things to say about his work at practice, nice outside–of–Lima social life to offset that ridiculous policy with the Cheerios, even managing to con Casey into helping him out one day a week at the florist now that his summer swim classes are over. There’s still that weirdness from earlier in the month, but Miles is pretty sure he didn’t give up any information he shouldn’t; he’s equally sure Coach is making a mountain out of a molehill with that.

Miles still has a short list of issues that need addressed, though, and when he sees Johannson skulking around the language wing bathroom, Miles figures he can go on and get that one item taken care of. For somebody who got suspended through the end of school and probably spent his summer in summer school, and considering he doesn’t have his worse half at school anymore to back him up, Johannson sure doesn’t look adequately contrite.

Johannson looks up when he sees Miles walking his way, and if the dumbass had the decency to look even a little bit concerned, Miles might have decided to go easier on him. Johannson just stares at Miles like there’s no reason to worry; maybe Johannson doesn’t even realize he _has_ a reason to worry about Miles Brown. He should, though, because he does.

Miles keeps walking towards Johannson until he’s right up in Johannson’s space, and Johannson takes two steps backwards, his back hitting the wall. Miles leans in close, really close, and props one hand on the wall next to Johannson’s head. Johannson can’t back up any farther, but he pulls his head back, turning his face to the side like he’s afraid Miles is trying to make a pass at him or something stupid like that.

“So here’s how it’s gonna be this year,” Miles begins, his tone conversational. He lets his mouth spread into a smile. Miles has many varieties of smiles, that each convey a different sentiment; this one shows all his teeth, not in a particularly friendly way, and Johannson actually cringes. “Last year, Shep and Hudson tried to explain some things to you, but apparently a good old-fashioned ass beating isn’t the way to get a message across to you.”

Johannson narrows his eyes, and his mouth starts to move like maybe he’s got something he wants to say in response, but Miles cuts him off with a still–conversational “I’m not done yet,” and Johannson wisely curtails his attempt at chit-chat.

“See, guys like Shep and Hudson, they can put a hurting on you, sure,” Miles says, still smiling, “but Shep and Hudson aren’t here this year. It’s the Brown Epoch now, and we Browns? Well, we’ve got a different approach to handling bullies.”

Johannson’s pissy look starts to change to one of confusion and mild concern, and he says, “Oh yeah?”

Miles nods his head slowly. “Oh, yeah. We Browns don’t waste our time issuing a beating. It’s messy and obviously it doesn’t stick. When we Browns have a problem, we just make it disappear. You understand what that means, Johannson?”

The confused, concerned expression gradually shifts as Miles’ words sink in to Johannson’s tiny little brain. “That’s bullshit,” Johannson finally says, but there’s more bravado than actual balls in his tone.

“You think so?” Miles asks, still just as pleasant–sounding as can be. “You’re totally sure about that?” Johannson doesn’t answer; he keeps staring back at Miles like he’s afraid to look away. “’Cause if you touch a single hair on Casey O’Brien’s head—hell, on anybody’s head, but especially _my_ people’s—this year, if you so much as upset him, if you look at him the wrong way and it interferes with his general happiness, I am going to disappear you. There won’t be a fight. There won’t be a goddamn _trace_. There won’t be anything but a distinct absence of Jojo, and nobody weeping for him but his mama.”

Johannson goes even paler, swallowing hard, and he breaks eye contact. Miles pats him on the shoulder, and Johannson flinches.

“I’m glad we had this little talk. You think about what I’ve said, and you let me know if you start getting any ideas about it being anything less than the god’s honest truth,” Miles says. “You run along now.” He removes his hand from the wall near Johannson’s head and takes a step backwards, and Johannson scrambles away as fast as somebody his size can scramble, disappearing right back into the language wing bathroom. Miles would lay money on him having just about made Johannson piss himself.

Yeah, it’s shaping up to be a damn fine senior year. 

 

**Wednesday, August 29th, 2012: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

“You headed out again?” Ty asks Dave as Dave collects his wallet and slings his backpack over one shoulder.

“Probably going to regret it in six hours or so,” Dave responds with a laugh, nodding. “Probably should be doing that problem set for calculus.”

“You’ve already had calculus,” Ty says dismissively. “You’ll be fine. Going to the Lambda Chi party?”

Dave shakes his head. “Nah, you know that’s not really my scene.”

“Too bad, supposed to be a good one.” Ty stands up, eyes lighting up. “I know, I’ll head out with you. I’ve gone out with Coop or Danny every night this week so far. Your turn!”

“I don’t think so,” Dave can’t help but say, then he starts to laugh. “Not unless you want to get checked out and rumors to start flying.”

“I like it when I get checked out!” Ty protests.

“Really? No matter who’s checking you out?” Dave has to ask, and he opens the door, somehow unsurprised when Ty reaches around him and shuts the door.

“You goin’ to some ugly women’s club?”

Dave rolls his eyes. “Pride Alliance Welcome Week.”

Ty just laughs for another moment and then Dave can tell the moment it hits him. “Wait. You’re?”

“Like you didn’t already suspect?” Dave shoots back, snorting.

“Holy shit, dude, but. Football!”

Part of Dave wants to snap that of _course_ gay men play football, but he realizes a split second later that Ty’s referring to the school, the press, the NCAA – not to Dave being a gay football player.

“Yeah, I know,” he nods, smiling wryly. “Luckily most people in the community hold to the philosophy of not outing people.”

“Damn,” Ty whistles. “Secret’s safe with me, Special K.” He grins widely. “Guess you really are special, huh?”

“Long as you still don’t mean it like you say it.”

“Course I don’t,” Ty protests, all false innocence. “I mean that you are a unique and talented individual who shines.”

Dave laughs heartily at that. “Yeah, right. So you still want to go with me?”

“Aww, hell, why not?” Ty says good-naturedly.

“Then grab your swim trunks.”

“Pool party?” Ty asks, now sounding a little dubious.

“And a cook-out.” Dave shrugs. “Sound good?”

“You had me at the word ‘cook’,” Ty agrees, darting back to his room. “Hold on!” he calls, emerging just a minute later in swim trunks and sunglasses. “ _Now_ I’m ready to go to my first gay cook-out.”


	4. September 2012

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What an eating disorder can do to the heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warnings: Addresses in great detail the mental, physical, and social/interpersonal effects of eating disorders.**

**Monday, September 3rd, 2012: Blacksburg, Virginia — Dave**

Georgia Tech opens the 2012 season with a road trip to Virginia Tech, which means all of them, even the red-shirted freshmen, climb on a bus early in the morning on Labor Day and head north. The game doesn’t even start until 8 pm, and while most of the guys were complaining about having to sleep on the bus on the way back, overnight, Dave’s just grateful they aren’t missing class on Tuesday morning. Five hours of studio time isn’t something he can easily make up.

When they get to Lane Stadium, they all suit up, and Dave sits on the bench with Ty and Coop, while Danny roams the sidelines, trying to see if he sees anyone he knows among the few students who did make the trip up to cheer the Yellow Jackets on. It’s one of the laziest days Dave’s had in months, actually, since he had plenty of time on Saturday to do some homework, and they weren’t expected to work out before they left.

Still, seven hours in the bus has left Dave feeling a little cramped, and when coach offers the red-shirts a chance to go in for halftime early and do some time on a treadmill, Dave and Ty both take it. Thirty minutes later, they join the rest of the team for the halftime meeting before deciding to take a spin on the bikes. They go back to the sidelines still in the middle of the third quarter, and the score isn’t any better than it was before halftime, if Dave’s being honest. While each individual player on the field is excellent, Dave knows that they aren’t fitting together well and working as a team. He’s definitely not trying to claim he or any of the freshman could do better, and they probably could manage to do worse, but he does wonder how that’s going to change in a way that lets them easily win games.

They all split into groups though, like they had at dinner, and Dave is just as bad about it as any of them. Particularly now, when he knows Ty told Coop and Danny, and neither of them seem to really care. It’s easier to be with people who know, just like PFLAG was easier than anything else at McKinley.

Danny’s right, just after the game, when he stares at the scoreboard. “A messy win’s a win,” he comments, “but an easy one would be better.”

 

**Tuesday, September 4th, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

“I’m going to mess it up,” Casey says. He clutches the stack of folders in one arm to his chest, gripping the edge of the binder underneath the folders. “I’m going to mess it up, and everybody’s going to leave before the meeting’s even over, and they’re never, ever going to come back.”

Miles shakes his head and puts his arm around Casey’s shoulders, giving him a one–armed hug. “Cherry, you’re getting yourself all worked up over nothing. You and Taylor have this thing planned out in minute detail. You’re not messing anything up.”

Casey leans against Miles and exhales loudly. “Is the discussion topic too much? Do you think it’ll scare the new people?”

“Nah, it’s good, it’s good,” Miles assures him, squeezing Casey’s shoulders a little tighter. “It’s the kind of stuff the new kids need to know. Now, let’s get in there and queer this place up, alright?”

“Right,” Casey says, and he lets Miles pilot him into the classroom where PFLAG meets. Alicia and Rick are already there setting up the snack table—complete with one of those drink cooler things full of juice from Miles’ Ma—along with Taylor and his friends, a few Cheerios, and a small cluster of girls Casey recognizes from last year.

Somebody’s already set up the circle of chairs, probably Taylor and friends, and Casey stands there for a moment on the edge of the circle, staring across it to his usual seat – and the seat next to it, the one that won’t be filled by its usual occupant.

“What’re we stopping for?” Miles asks, giving Casey a slight tug forward by the shoulders.

“I don’t know where to sit,” Casey whispers. “I don’t want to sit in my old seat.”

Miles’ arm drops from Casey’s shoulders, and he rests one hand against his chin, propping his elbow on his other arm as he considers the circle of chairs. He makes a few speculative–sounding humming noises before finally nodding his head once and saying, “I know just the spot.”

Miles’ arm goes around Casey’s shoulders again, and Casey finds himself being dragged in the direction of Kurt Hummel’s usual seat from last year. As Miles gently pushes Casey down into the seat, Casey says, “Oh, Miles, I don’t think—”

“Well, _I_ think,” Miles cuts in. “This is the Brass seat. You want them to take you seriously? You’ve gotta sit in this seat and channel you some Big Brass Balls.”

“Um. I don’t think I can do that,” Casey says, but he settles himself into the chair anyway.

“Sure you can. Just think bossy and prissy and terrifying,” Miles says, with a dismissive wave of his hand as he flings himself into the chair next to Casey’s. “And try to project when you talk. It’ll give you a more commanding presence.”

Casey laughs at the idea of having anything like a commanding presence, and the room slowly fills. He sees a lot of familiar faces and a lot of new ones, too, some of them excited and some of them as scared–looking as he probably felt the first few times he came to a PFLAG meeting. He wonders how many of them have to deal what anything at home like what he used to, how many of them have secrets they have to keep for their own safety, and how many of them would do what he did if those secrets get found out.

Suddenly, running PFLAG feels like too heavy of a burden for anybody to bear, and he wonders how Kurt did it week after week. Channel Kurt Hummel? Miles has no idea what he’s asking. Casey is hopelessly unqualified for this. 

 

**Friday, September 7th, 2012: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Practice the day before a game is shorter and lighter than other days, and dinner is sort of loud and rambunctious. Sometimes Dave feels sorry for the rest of the students who are in the dining hall with them; the sixteen or so of them that are freshman football players get more and more obnoxious and loud as the meal progresses.

There’s a movie night at nine, and all of them declare their intentions of watching whatever it is that’s been cooked up for the freshmen, since only one of them has to even worry about the possibility of playing the next day, and even then, the guy from two doors down is just not red-shirted; he isn’t a starter or anything. That gives Dave a couple of hours free, and he closes the door to his room, knowing he should do a little bit of calculus, to stay on top of it, but instead he decides to check all of his various email addresses, Facebook, and Twitter.

He gets through all of his email before heading to Twitter. Most of the people he follows are from McKinley, though he’s slowly added a few people from Tech, mostly from his architecture classes. He’s amused at Az’s slew of dick–related tweets from Fort Dix, most of them directed at Dave’s Twitter account, not to mention the fact that Hudson seems to now have two Twitter accounts: one that UW knows about, and one that they don’t.

Dave hasn’t looked at Facebook in a couple of days, and he more or less skims it, though he smiles at the couple of mentions of PFLAG he sees and some of the funny things a few others now in college have posted.

He freezes, though, when he scrolls down to a picture. He’s not sure when it was taken, but obviously it was well after the first of August, when Casey was on _Fondue for Two_. It _is_ Casey in the picture, he can tell that, though it’s not the Casey he would expect to see.

“Fuck,” he whispers out loud. “Did you just stop eating at all, Case?”

The picture doesn’t answer, of course, but it really doesn’t have to. Dave can’t begin to guess at how much weight Casey’s lost, but it’s a significant amount, especially considering Casey didn’t really have any _extra_ to begin with. Dave closes the window and then his laptop, sitting down heavily on his bed.

No one asked him anything important before he left. Not a single one of them talked to him, and he wonders if anyone ever talked to Dr. Naser, either. He wonders if Coach Beiste is even making sure Casey’s _going_ to Dayton to see Dr. Naser, or if she’s just taking Casey’s word. Dave doesn’t think that Casey would just stop going, necessarily, but surely Dr. Naser would have noticed the weight loss.

Why hasn’t _someone_ noticed? Coach Beiste, the swim coach, Miles Brown, Dr. Naser… there’s a long list of people that Dave would have expected to notice, but Casey would have told him if someone or multiple someones were trying to get him to eat more. That much, Dave is pretty sure of, too.

He’s still sitting on his bed when Ty knocks on the door. “Special K, time for movie night!”

Shit. Dave hadn’t realized that he’d been sitting there, just staring and thinking, for quite so long. Dave sighs heavily. “Just a sec!”

Something in his tone must give him away, because a second later, the door creaks open, and Ty pokes his head in. “Everything okay? You don’t sound so good, dude.”

“No, not really,” Dave says candidly. “But I’m not sure there’s anything to be done about it.”

“Classes?”

“What? Oh, no.” Dave gestures towards his laptop. “Thought I’d catch up on Facebook and that kind of thing, you know? And someone posted a picture of Casey.” Dave shakes his head. “He’s lost a _lot_ of weight, Ty. Unhealthy amount of weight. And you saw him.”

“Dude’s not big to begin with,” Ty agrees. “So… you think everybody up there in Lima’s just letting it happen?”

“Sure looks that way from this end of 75.” Dave scowls. “Guess I need to call Coach on Monday or something.”

“Coach?”

“My old football coach, she and her husband have guardianship of Casey.” Dave starts to say more, then stops himself. Casey probably wouldn’t like anyone knowing even that much about him. “So I guess I need to see what she knows, first.”

“Makes sense, then.” Ty nods. “Come on. Let’s go to movie night. Can’t fix anything tonight.”

The bad part is, Ty’s one hundred percent right.

 

**Saturday, September 8th, 2012: Lima/Dayton, Ohio — Casey**

After work, Casey takes a shower at Miles’ house, because Miles says he can’t put up with another hour–long drive with someone who “smells like he drowned in a pot of coffee and floated there for a week before he got fished out”. The bathroom Miles and Alicia share has a big mirror above the sink and a full-length mirror on the back of the door; Casey still manages to get showered, dried off, and dressed in regular clothes without taking a good look at himself.

They stop at the gas station for pops and candy, then spend most of the drive to Dayton arguing over whether original Mario or original Link would win in a fight. Miles is firmly in the Mario camp, because of the going Super, but Casey’s equally certain that Link’s ability to walk in more than two directions and to use his sword as a ranged weapon gives him the advantage. They finally decide to call a truce just before they arrive at the center, when they establish that _Ocarina of Time_ Link would definitely have the upper hand on _Paper Mario_ Mario.

Miles gets a plateful of cookies, which still makes Casey laugh a little, even after months, and they grab a pair of chairs. Things must be running slow, because even though Casey’s shower put them a half-hour later than they normally arrive, the discussion topic portion of the day is still going. Casey listens for a few minutes before he figures out that they seem to be discussing portrayals of LGBT characters on television shows, at which point he grabs his pop, the roll of Necco Wafers he bought at the gas station because they looked interesting, and his book out of his bag and starts to read.

Casey looks up from his book a fews times to watch Miles pretend to listen to the discussion, which means he’s probably actually trying to pick up the guy sitting next to the facilitator. Sure enough, once the discussion dwindles, Miles does that funny, polite little check-in that he does with Casey before he makes his way to the other side of the room. By the time Miles reappears an hour and a half later, Casey’s read three chapters of his book, talked to the guy who runs the Troy High School PFLAG group and a girl trying to start a GSA at Bellefontaine High School, and decided that only two flavors of Necco Wafers are actually edible.

As the two of them climb back into the Lemon, Casey has the brief thought that Miles maybe shouldn’t offer any commentary about riding in the car with Casey smelling like coffee if Miles plans to ride in the car smelling like somebody who disappeared for an hour and a half with a guy who wears too much aftershave. He doesn’t say it out loud, though, and just asks, “Did you have a nice visit?”

Miles gives Casey a big, lazy smile. “Tolerable way to spend an hour, anyway.”

“Hour and a half,” Casey points out. “You didn’t have fun with your new friend?”

“We had an alright time,” Miles says, shrugging. “Nothing like last week, though. Carlos the gymnast, Cherry. Upper body strength and flexible like you wouldn’t even believe.”

“Probably wouldn’t,” Casey agrees. “You should try writing down your new friends’ phone numbers, Miles. Then you could see them again if you wanted to. More than just a few hours. They could be actual friends.”

“Nah. It’s better this way, Cherry, trust me,” Miles says, dismissively. “Uncomplicated, serves its purpose, everybody walks away happy. You should give it a try sometime. Wouldn’t hurt you to have a little fun.”

“It might,” Casey says. “And no thank you. I’m good. I don’t need that kind of fun.”

“Oh, Cherry, believe me. _Everybody_ needs that kind of fun.”

 

**Monday, September 10th, 2012: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Dave hurries through his post-workout shower and out of the locker room with a wave to his roommates, then up to the dining hall, where he gets three yogurts, two bananas, and some milk, juggling it all as he heads outside to find a quiet corner.

It hadn’t taken much effort to find Coach Beiste’s direct number at school; he’d settled on that to make sure Casey wasn’t around. He doesn’t like having to do it, though, and he types in the number quickly, before he can get really upset.

“McKinley Athletics Office, Shannon speaking.”

“Coach.” Dave takes a deep breath. “This is Dave Karofsky.”

“Dave.” Beiste sounds surprised. “What can I do for you? You liking Georgia Tech?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Dave pauses. “I was on Facebook this weekend. How much weight has Casey lost, exactly, and why isn’t anyone worried about it?”

There’s a moment of silence on the other end, and Dave isn’t sure what that means. Then she starts to talk, her tone far too close to ingratiating for Dave’s liking. “Dave, I know you were—”

“Stop. I know what you’re going to say. What I’m noticing on Facebook, anyone could be noticing. I’m just asking why no one’s done anything about it. For now. I have other questions, like did he just stop eating altogether? Why didn’t Dr. Naser notice? Is he still seeing Dr. Naser?”

“This isn’t your concern any longer, Dave,” Coach says, more firmly.

“Excuse me, ma’am, but bullshit. Casey is my friend and I’d be a very poor friend if I didn’t say something. I saw the picture on Friday and I’ve been trying to figure out all weekend when the people of Lima went blind!”

“If there’s a concern, I’m sure Dr. Naser would call Monty or myself. Yes, he’s lost some weight, but he’s been working out all summer and you should know, Dave, how that can result in some rapid weight loss.”

Dave wants to believe her, but she sounds more like she’s trying to convince herself than Dave, and while she’s not going to admit it, Dave can hear the tone in her voice that says she’s at least a bit worried, and the fact that Dave has called probably is making her worry a little more.

Good. Someone needs to be worried, and if they aren’t going to let Dave do anything about it, then someone who _can_ do something needs to be worried.

“It’s not just weight loss from working out.” Dave sighs. “I have to go to class. Just take a good look at him and his habits, please. Bye, Coach.”

He doesn’t give her a chance to respond, just ends the call and pockets his phone, eating both bananas and two of the yogurts before standing and eating the third yogurt on his way to Skiles. He doesn’t want Casey to be annoyed, but he sincerely hopes he gets an annoyed text or phone call from Casey in a few days, that Coach is bugging him about his weight loss.

 

**Monday, September 10th, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Shannon**

It takes Shannon an extra chicken, two extra coffees, and a long talk with Emma over lunch before she decides what to do next. She dallies a little bit, pretending that she needs to extensively use Google to find the number she needs, then waiting until it’s past 1:30, in case of a ‘late lunch’. By the time she finally places the call, she knows it’s what she has to do.

“Brown Insurance.”

“Ms. Brown?”

“Speaking.”

“This is Shannon Beiste. Desmond.” Shannon shakes her head at herself. One of these days she needs to just stick with a name and force everyone around her to go with it. “Do you have a moment to talk?”

“Of course. My Miles hasn’t gotten himself into trouble, has he?”

“Oh, no, Miles is fine. I actually wanted to talk to you a bit about Casey O’Brien.”

“Oh, he’s such a dear. If you’re worried about him being over at our house, don’t be. We love having him.”

“No, no, that’s fine,” Shannon says slowly. “But I am concerned about his weight. Weight loss. Miles says he does eat when he has dinner with your family?”

Ms. Brown laughs, but it’s an odd sounding laugh. “Well, I wouldn’t call it eating, no, but he has some juice. Well, I tell him it’s juice. He’s probably figured out by now about the protein powder, but probably not about the liquid vitamins or the ground flaxseed.” She pauses and then continues enthusiastically. “I grind the flaxseed fresh in a coffee grinder, so that’s fiber and omega 3 fatty acids. I bought that Floradix. It’s got iron, B vitamins, and I got their calcium and magnesium supplement too. Plus everything in the fruits and vegetables I put into the juicer. It’s more like a smoothie. Not perfect, but it’s something!”

Shannon has to stop and collect her thoughts. Juice, or a smoothie – that’s not the same as a meal. That’s a post-workout recovery snack, or pre-morning workout drink, that should be followed with a proper breakfast. The only reports of any food going into Casey that she had – they had been Miles Brown’s assurances of Casey eating dinner with his family, and Miles Brown’s mother just obliterated that tiny bit of hope.

“The only person who could assure me they’d seen Casey eating lately was Miles,” Shannon says softly after about thirty seconds of silence. “And you’re telling me that was a lie?”

Shannon can practically _hear_ the bristling at the implication that Miles Brown lied, but then there’s a soft exhalation. “All I know is that I’ve only gotten him to drink, for weeks now. I knew – honestly, I figured he was a little strange about eating in front of people. Miles and Alicia told me he was doing really well with his swimming, and people that don’t eat don’t do well in sports.”

“Not usually, no,” Shannon agrees. “And we’d noticed some weight loss, but his swim coach thought—and we agreed—that it might have something to do with working out. Things haven’t changed with school back in session, though, and the weight loss is seeming even more obvious.” Shannon sighs. “Thank you for the information and your time.”

“Not at all a problem. You let me know if there’s anything I can do for that poor boy, please.”

“Yes, I will,” Shannon answers, though she is pretty sure that by the time she called, Ms. Brown would have already heard about the problem and implemented at least one possible solution. It might not be the _right_ solution, but Shannon can’t imagine her not at least trying _some_ solution.

 

**Tuesday, September 11th, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

“Going to Miles’!” Casey shouts over his shoulder as he heads for the front door. 

“Wait!” Shannon calls. “We need to talk to you first, Casey.”

She has that _tone_. Casey knows that tone. It’s meant to be soothing, just like she tried to sound soothing when she talked to him at the end of the last school year, but he knows it’s really a danger tone. His hand closes on the door knob, heart pounding. He could probably get out the door and into the Lemon before anybody can stop him. Shannon is big, but he’s fast, and he could drive away before they decide to do something else with him. He could get in the car and go.

“Casey?” Monty’s voice calls from the living room. “Will you please come in here?”

Casey turns the door knob. “Casey. Now,” Shannon says, sounding far less soothing than before.

Casey sighs and his hand drops away from the door. “Alright. Fine. I’m coming.” He walks toward the living room and stands in the doorway. It was all just a matter of time, really. “Where am I going this time?”

Monty and Shannon exchange confused looks, and then Monty hurries to say, “No, no, you’re not going anywhere. It’s not about that. Shannon, tell him it’s not about that.”

“Nope, we’re not sending you anywhere,” Shannon agrees. “But we do need to talk, so come sit down.”

Casey sits down on the end of the sofa that’s the farthest from Shannon and Monty. He sits stiffly; whatever this is, even if it’s not about another move, it’s not good. “What did I do? I know I did something, so just tell me what I did wrong. I’ll do it better.”

“This is more about… what you haven’t done,” Shannon says slowly. “Casey, in the last two or three months, you’ve lost a _lot_ of weight. We’re pretty sure you’re not eating.”

Oh. Oh, _god_. This is not good. They clearly expect an answer, and the answer isn’t going to be—can’t be—any kind of agreement, but _oh, god_. This isn’t something Casey wants to talk about with Shannon, or Monty, or anybody. Coach Brum talked about the conditioning thing, so that sounds like a good answer. It sounds like it makes perfect sense. 

“I started swimming and running every day,” Casey says. His voice only shakes a little, and he’s very proud of that. “I started doing that in the last three months. That’s… that’s a lot of stuff. New stuff.”

“And that might explain some of the weight loss,” Shannon says with a nod. “But not all of it, Casey, and it doesn’t address the fact that you don’t seem to be eating, period.”

“That’s not true. It’s not!” Casey says, his volume and the pitch of his voice rising. “I do eat. Of course I eat.”

“I can’t find anyone who’s seen you eat in quite awhile,” Shannon counters. “The evidence is relatively clear. No sign of eating. Clear visible signs of weight loss.” She looks at Monty and then back at Casey. “But I suppose we could be overestimating the amount of weight you’ve lost.”

“You’re _talking_ to people? About me?” Casey wonders who they’ve talked to, if she did what she did last time, and called all his friends in to interrogate them. “Who did you talk to? If you talked to my friends, I know they’d tell you that I eat, and they— they’d tell you, because they know I do!”

“We can settle this now,” Shannon continues, ignoring Casey’s questions. “Maybe you haven’t lost that much weight.”

“I haven’t. I _haven’t_ ,” Casey insists. “It’s not that much.”

Shannon nods at Monty. “Then let’s check.”

Monty looks sympathetic and resigned as he reaches underneath the far end of the sofa and slides out the silver bathroom scale. They actually hid a scale underneath the sofa; this is the biggest set-up of all set-ups ever, and Casey’s fairly sure that there’s no way to escape. He probably couldn’t make it to the door fast enough now. 

“I am _not_ stepping on that,” Casey says, crossing his arms. 

“It’s just a chance to prove us wrong.” Shannon shrugs. “You say you’ve been eating and haven’t lost that much weight. So prove it.”

Casey thinks about refusing again, because they’re wrong, he hasn’t lost that much weight, really, and it’s not their business even if he has, just like it's not their business if he eats or not. He weighs the potential fallout of refusing against any possible benefit of complying; he’s wearing one T-shirt layered over another, a belt, jeans, and shoes. With all of that, it’s probably ‘enough’ for them. 

“Fine,” he says. 

“Shoes off,” Shannon insists.

“No.”

“I’ll just subtract for the shoes, then.” Shannon gestures at the scale.

“ _Fine_ ,” Casey repeats, and he steps onto the scale. He doesn’t look down at the numbers, and he doesn’t look at Shannon or Monty, either. Nobody says anything right away. In fact, it seems like nobody says anything for a long time, and Casey continues standing on the scale and glaring at the bookshelves in the corner of the room.

Finally, Monty makes a quiet sound, not quite a sigh, and says, “Oh, Casey.”

“That’s worse than we thought.” Shannon reaches for a pad of paper and writes something down slowly. “Guess we really were blind.”

Casey doesn’t still look Shannon directly in the face as he says, “Guess you shouldn’t have subtracted for the shoes.”

“Go upstairs,” Shannon says, too calmly. “You’re grounded. Give Monty your keys, you’ll get them in the morning to go to school, unless we decide otherwise.”

Now Casey does finally look directly at Shannon. “No! It’s mine! You can’t take it!”

“Give us your keys,” Shannon repeats. “I can call every single one of your friends that worked on it, if you like. I’ll make sure it’s okay with them that Monty has your keys, explain the entire situation.”

“You wouldn’t,” Casey says, but he’s actually sure that she probably would.

“I would. Keys, Casey, then upstairs. We’ll talk more tomorrow.” It’s obvious that Shannon’s done talking about it. Casey looks at Monty for some kind of support or the slightest evidence that he might be on Casey’s side, but all Monty does is hold his hand out. 

Casey shoves his hand into his pocket, pulls out his keys, and throws them into Monty’s hand a little too forcefully before turning and stomping out of the living room and into his bedroom, where he slams the door behind himself. He throws himself down on his bed, then gets up again and locks the door, then flings himself back down onto the bed hard enough to make the frame rattle. 

What he knows, and Shannon obviously doesn’t, is that he has the spare set of keys to the Lemon. He could climb out the window, get in the car, and drive… where? They’d probably look for him at Miles’ house first, there’s no way Rick’s parents would let him stay there, and Casey has a bright yellow car, something that’s not particularly common in Lima, so he couldn’t even park it somewhere and sleep in it. He briefly considers driving to Atlanta, but he can’t exactly show up on David’s doorstep—if dorms in Atlanta even have doorsteps—without warning, even if he wants to. And he really, really wants to.

The best he can do is call David and tell him that everybody in Lima has clearly lost their minds. 

 

**Tuesday, September 11th, 2012: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Dave is just leaving dinner when his phone chirps with a tweet, and he pulls out his phone to read it. 

_Plz call_

That’s all Casey says, and Dave waits a good thirty seconds, expecting a second text, but when nothing else comes, he waves at the rest of the guys and steps towards a nearby bench, calling Casey. 

“David!” Casey sounds frantic when he answers the call on the first ring. “David, they took my car keys, and they made me stand on a scale, and they talked to people, David, I don’t even know who they talked to, and it’s _bad_ , it’s really really bad, and—”

“Slow down, Case,” Dave says. He’s surprised Coach actually acted already, considering her lack of action for most of the summer. “Start over.”

“They said they think I don’t eat! They said they think I’ve lost too much weight!” 

Dave isn’t sure why he’s supposed to be outraged, exactly, because, well. That’s what he thinks, too. “Okay,” he says slowly. 

“And David, they _talked_ to people about me! And I don’t even know who they talked to! Maybe everybody!” Casey doesn’t sound any less frantic, but he is at least making an effort to talk more slowly. “They took my car keys.”

“Because you aren’t eating?” Dave asks, because that doesn’t really make much sense, but maybe they’re trying to make sure Casey isn’t… well, Dave isn’t sure what Casey would be doing, exactly.

“I wouldn’t take off my shoes.”

That doesn’t make any sense at all, and Dave figures he may have to call Coach Beiste _again_. “Hmm. So you’re grounded?”

“They won’t let me go over to Miles’ house. I was supposed to go over there for dinner!” Casey somehow manages to sound both panicked and indignant. “If they think I’m not eating, why can’t I go to Miles’ for _dinner_?”

“Probably so they can see for themselves if you really do eat anything,” Dave says, wincing even as he says it, because it’s probably not what Casey wants to hear. 

“I eat! David, I eat, I do!” Casey insists, his voice taking on an increasingly higher pitch. 

“Why are you lying to me, Case?” Dave asks quietly. “I’ve seen pictures of you on Facebook. I don’t even want to guess how little you weigh right now. So why are you lying to me?”

Casey doesn’t answer for a long time, long enough that Dave stands up and starts walking to a different part of campus while he waits for a response. Casey’s voice is a little shaky when he finally says, “It’s not that much. I didn’t lose that much.”

“Why, Casey?” Dave repeats. “C’mon. Why?” Because he’s still lying, even after Dave pointed out the lies. There’s another too–long stretch of silence, where Dave wonders if this is how the entire conversation’s going to be, from that point forward.

“You weren’t supposed to know,” Casey whispers. “You weren’t supposed to worry about me.”

But someone has to, Dave thinks, though he doesn’t say it out loud. “Can we at least both acknowledge that you _aren’t_ eating and you _have_ lost too much weight? ’Cause I can’t really pretend otherwise, Case.”

“I’m so sorry.” Casey sounds like he’s about to cry, his voice cracking. “I’m so, _so_ sorry.”

“Let them help you. Please. Go talk to Dr. Naser, if you don’t want to talk to Coach. Just… don’t keep doing this to yourself, Case.”

“I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean for this to happen, David. I’m so sorry.” Casey is crying very quietly, but Dave can hear the occasional sniffle and hiccup in his voice.

“Just don’t… you have to stop, Casey,” Dave says again. “Okay?”

When Casey speaks, his voice reminds Dave of how he sounded months ago, when he had the black eye, like he’s a little bit broken, almost. “I don’t know how. I don’t know how to stop.”

“Then I guess that’s what Dr. Naser’s for,” Dave answers, sounding more confident than he feels. “And hey. Talk to Coach, okay? At least try.”

“Okay. Okay, I’ll try. I’ll do better,” Casey says, and Dave knows it isn’t any kind of promise, but at least Casey acknowledged the problem. Pressing for more at the moment isn’t going to do either of them any good. It’s not going to make a difference, not right away. 

“Okay, Case. We’ll talk later.” Dave sighs a little, because he has another phone call to make after this. 

“I’m sorry, David. I didn’t want you to worry.” Casey sniffles quietly again. “I’ll be here later. Probably tomorrow, too. I don’t know how long grounding lasts.”

“That varies,” Dave says, almost amused. “Okay. Bye, Case.”

“Bye, David.”

The call ends and Dave stares at his phone for a few seconds before coming to a decision and finding a little–used number. Before he has time to get even angrier, he starts the call and listens to it ring three times before the call is answered.

“Shep? To what do I owe the unexpected pleasure?”

“The fuck kind of idiot are you, Miles?” Dave snarls.

“What, now?” Miles asks, sounding confused. “What are you talking about?”

“Are you blind? Are you so busy trying to charm everyone in Ohio that you can’t see what’s right in front of you? Or hell, did you think it was _okay_ somehow?” Dave gets a few looks from people walking by, and he frowns and turns his back on the sidewalk. “Is your own sense of what’s healthy that screwed up? Explain it to me, Miles, because I don’t fucking get it.”

“Whoa, whoa! Hold up there a second, Shep! You mind taking a second to catch me up on whatever the hell it is you think I did?”

“Casey, you dumb fuck. He looks like he’s been lost in the fucking woods all summer with a couple of bottles to fill with rainwater, and nothing else.”

“Oh,” Miles says, suddenly serious. “Alright. Well.” He sighs loudly. “Well, shit, Shep. I’m doing the best I can to get enough calories into him, but there’s only so much he’ll drink.”

“You’ve been covering for him with Coach.” It’s not a question, because Dave knows Casey, he knows Miles, and he can put the story together well–enough. “You’ve been telling her he was eating dinner at your house. Maybe other meals, during the summer. You’ve acted like he eats at lunch. Right?”

“My Ma’s making him these smoothies, they’ve got all kinds of stuff in ’em. It’s more than he’s been eating anywhere else. It’s more than he _ever_ eats anywhere else. Figured he was better off at our place,” Miles says. “And you’ve seen how they are about him. They think something’s wrong, who knows where they’ll send him next or what they’re gonna do?”

“A smoothie isn’t a meal, you idiot. Not unless you’re on a strict weight- _loss_ diet. It’s not the same as fucking eating dinner, and if you thought for a moment about it, you’d realize I’m right.”

“They can’t _make_ him eat, Shep, short of shoving a tube down his throat!” Miles snaps. “At least I’ve been getting him to drink the damn smoothies. He even drinks a milkshake on Sundays. I know it’s not much, but it’s more than anybody else is doing! I didn’t know he was gonna get like this!”

“You can’t lie about this kind of shit, Miles! Have you really _looked_ at him? Go look at Facebook. Find a picture from May, or hell, even the beginning of July. And compare it to the one posted on Friday. It’s scary as fuck, Miles, and you fucking helped him get that way.”

“I was trying to protect him,” Miles insists. “I know he’s getting skinny, but I was just trying to take care of him. Nobody else is doing that! I don’t know what Coach is doing, but whatever it is, it’s not working, Shep! Cherry’s miserable, man. He tries to not let on, and I thought maybe he’d get over it after he got used to you being gone, but he’s not.”

“You might have tried, Miles, but you failed. You fucking failed, you did it all wrong, and now Casey might _need_ a tube shoved down his throat. I guess we should just all be glad dumb ol’ Dave still checks Facebook, even eight hours away, or what would have happened? All of you be surprised when he just fell over one day? You’re an idiot. You’re a complete fucking idiot and giving him smoothies is great, but you never should have covered for him.”

“I didn’t know what to do. None of us did,” Miles says, like the fight’s gone out of him. “Nobody.”

“I’m pretty sure lying isn’t the answer of what to do,” Dave says flatly. “That much seems pretty fucking clear. How long ago, Miles? How many weeks have you been covering for him?”

Miles hesitates, and Dave sits down, almost bracing himself. “A month,” Miles finally says, “but really I’ve been covering for him since you left.”

He almost doesn’t sound like Miles Brown, at all, and Dave has a second of momentary pity before it passes. “I fucking swear, Miles, if he’s got permanent damage because of this, I’m taking it out of you. Piece by fucking painful piece. And you aren’t going to fight back.”

Miles sighs and then says, “You’re right. I won’t. If that happens, I won’t.”

“Casey’s grounded or something. I don’t think you’ll be seeing him for fake–dinner for awhile. Maybe you can use the time to think about shit.” Without waiting for Miles to respond, Dave ends the call, angrily shoving his phone into his pocket. 

What a fucking idiot. What fucking idiots all of them, including Dave, are.

 

**Tuesday, September 11th, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Miles**

After Miles gets off the phone with Karofsky, he doesn’t call Casey like he’d planned. Instead, he lies down on his bed for a long time, thinking. No matter how he tries to turn it over and over in his mind, he can’t come up with any real way to look at this whole mess without it being exactly how Karofsky put it. Casey’s in bad shape, worse shape than Miles ever let himself acknowledge, and Miles has been holding Casey’s hand the whole way down.

“Miles?” Ma says through the door after awhile, tapping on it as she speaks. 

“Not hungry, Ma,” Miles calls out. “I’ll make a sandwich later. Just save me some juice.”

She opens the door and puts her head in. “Mind telling me what all the yelling was about?”

“What’d Coach say when she told you Cherry wasn’t coming over?” Miles asks. “She say why?”

“He’s grounded,” Ma says simply. “The yelling?”

“I think I might be grounded, too,” Miles says. “Shep called me. I think… I think maybe I messed up, Ma.”

“Mmm.” Ma walks in and shuts the door. “You want to talk about it?”

Miles starts to shake his head, but then he changes his mind and nods a little. “You promise you won’t tell anybody? Not Dad or Alicia, and not Coach, even if she calls you back?”

“I promise, with one exception, and I think you know what that exception would be.”

“It’s just, Cherry doesn’t like people talking about him. I don’t want him to know you and me are talking about him, is all,” Miles says. “It’s not— I’m not lying about anything, I promise.”

“I can’t keep a secret if someone’s life is in danger, Miles, regardless of who it might be. That’s the exception.”

“Well, I think people already know. I don’t think it’s a secret anymore,” Miles says. “Ma, I think Casey’s maybe really not doing so great, and I think I helped him be like that.”

“Well. I’m pretty sure I understand why you might have done what you did,” Ma says slowly. “And now you’ve got a choice to make going forward, one I’m pretty sure you’ve already made. Like Maya Angelou says, when you know better, you do better.”

Miles nods. “I thought I was helping him, Ma. I thought I was helping take care of him. I didn’t know it was so bad. Shep says I’m an idiot and that all of us were blind, and I think maybe he’s right.”

Ma laughs for a few seconds. “He does have a refreshing bluntness sometimes, doesn’t he?” She shakes her head. “Miles, baby, you’re seventeen. You’re a high school student. Part of being a teenager is making some mistakes. Now, who do you think ‘Shep’ really wanted to say that to?”

“Ma,” Miles says, rolling his eyes. “Don’t make air quotes, alright? And I dunno, I think he sounded like he really wanted to say that to _me_. He’s rightly pissed at me.”

“Miles.” Ma sounds almost stern. “You stop and think about it. Are you Casey’s guardian? Is he?”

“He’s the only one who didn’t mess things up worse than they already were messed,” Miles answers. “But, no, neither one of us is.”

“So my guess is that he’s mad at the adults in this situation, because none of it’s been handled very well, has it? And let’s face it, Miles. You’re a safe target for that anger. Now, you and I know you’d do things differently if you could go back, but no one expects you to have it all figured out. You understand me?”

“I didn’t mean for him to get sick, Ma,” Miles says. “I didn’t know he was getting so skinny. I don’t know how nobody saw it.”

“I’m not an expert, Miles, but.” She pauses. “I think he didn’t want anyone to see it. He probably took some steps to make sure it wasn’t obvious.”

“They should’ve let him come live with us, if they were gonna make him move,” Miles says, a little more angrily than he really meant for it to sound. “You wouldn’t have let him do this to himself if he lived here.”

“I’d like to think that,” Ma says, “but we can’t know for sure. We just have to go forward with what we’ve been given, all of us.”

“I don’t like what we’ve been given and I want to trade it in,” Miles grumbles. 

“Oh, baby. Welcome to adulthood.”

 

**Wednesday, September 12th, 2012: Lima/Dayton, Ohio — Casey**

Neither one of the two smoothies sitting on the table in front of Casey look like anything he would really want to drink under the best of circumstances, but definitely not with Shannon staring at him. One of the smoothies is pink and the other one is vaguely yellow, and while he’s at least sure that means neither one has a radish or a pickle or artichoke puree, he would still rather be dealing with Miles’ Ma and her juicer than _this_.

“We’d rather you drink both of them,” Shannon says, standing at the stove and cooking something involving eggs. “If not, though, you can pick which one suits your tastes better.”

Casey thinks to himself _Oh gee, can I?_ What he says out loud is, “I’m going to be late for school if I don’t leave soon.”

“Not something to worry about today,” Shannon says calmly. “I called the school to let them know you wouldn’t be in today, and to arrange a substitute for my classes.”

Casey almost asks if that means he’s allowed to take his time drinking the smoothie, but the look on Shannon’s face makes him think better of it. Instead, he asks, “Why?” and keeps glaring suspiciously at the smoothies. The yellowish one might have butter in it.

“You and I are going to Dayton to see Dr. Naser.”

“It’s not Monday. I go on Mondays.”

“Yet, lately, you don’t really go at all, do you?” Shannon doesn’t really seem to be asking for an answer. “We’re going today.”

“You said I could rearrange the appointments because of swim,” Casey points out. “You said that was fine.”

“Rearrange doesn’t mean skip, Casey, and I’m pretty sure you know that.” Shannon puts her egg dish on a plate and sits down, nodding at the smoothies. “Go on, Monty’s looks better than mine, I have to admit.”

“Which one is Monty’s?”

“The yellow one.”

That’s too bad. He’d hoped it was the pink one, but if Monty made the yellow one, and Shannon made the pink one, Casey will pick the yellow one. He reaches out and slides the glass in front of him on the table, using the straw to poke at the contents to see if he can figure out what the smoothie is comprised of, other than possibly butter.

Shannon shrugs slightly and proceeds to eat, watching Casey out of the corner of her eye. Casey uses the straw to stir the smoothie for a while, then he goes back to poking it. He’s not really sure what Shannon expects; she’s already hauling him in to Dr. Naser’s office. Drinking this smoothie isn’t going to make him one smoothie closer to anybody being happy, so what’s the point?

When Shannon finishes her eggs and puts her dishes away, she turns to look at Casey, frowning at the amount still in the glass. She rummages in the cabinets for a few minutes before setting a disposable cup and lid in front of Casey. “Put the rest of it in here, you can take it in the car.”

Casey will carry that smoothie to Mordor and throw it into the fires of Mount Doom before he drinks it, but he pours it into the cup anyway, without arguing. After the lid is on the cup, he stands up and pushes in his chair, then follows Shannon out to the car. She doesn’t try to talk to him on the drive, at least, and he holds the cup of smoothie and leans his forehead against the window, watching the unbroken white line on the edge of the Interstate. 

By the time they finally exit the Interstate in Dayton, Casey’s pretty sure the smoothie has mostly melted, and he’s made himself a little carsick watching the line. Pulling into Dr. Naser’s parking lot is actually kind of a relief. 

“Do I have to bring the smoothie in?” Casey asks, when Shannons turns off the car.

“Yes, you do,” Shannon says without inflection.

Casey shrugs one shoulder in acknowledgement and follows Shannon into the building. They sit in Dr. Naser’s waiting room for a while, then Shannon gets called in, and while Casey waits for her to come out again, he texts Miles. Miles doesn’t text back, but he’s probably in the middle of class right now, so Casey decides he could maybe text David, just to let him know that they’re doing what David thought they should do and are at Dr. Naser’s. That might make him worry less.

 _At Dr. Naser’s_ is all he texts to David. That way, David doesn’t have to answer it if he doesn’t want to. He can just know where Casey is and he can be less upset. 

Shannon doesn’t come back from Dr. Naser’s office for almost thirty minutes, and by that time, Casey still hasn’t heard back from David or from Miles, even though he knows Miles’ class has let out by now. When Dr. Naser’s door opens, Shannon walks out, and Dr. Naser waves Casey in. He doesn’t look at Shannon as he passes by her on the way into the office.

“Sit down, Casey,” Dr. Naser says, when he doesn’t immediately sit. He sits in the chair across the desk from her, holding the smoothie cup slightly out from his body like that bag of sand Indiana Jones swaps for the statue thing in _Raiders of the Lost Ark_. “So, what’s in the cup?” she asks, once he’s settled.

“My smoothie,” Casey answers, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“I haven’t seen you in a while,” Dr. Naser says, looking at him with one eyebrow raised.

“We rescheduled. I had swim practice.”

“Yes, you did reschedule. And reschedule. You rescheduled your last July visit three times before you actually came to an appointment, and the next one was rescheduled six times, and now here we are,” she says, glancing down at the paper on her desk. “Should we just cut through the crap and talk about why a five-foot-five sixteen-year-old boy has dropped down to approximately a hundred and one pounds?”

“She subtracted too much for the shoes,” Casey responds, his voice perfectly neutral.

“So I hear,” Dr. Naser says, matching his tone. “Have you seen the side-by-side comparison pictures that Shannon has of you? I have them here, if you’d like to see them. I think you’ll agree that the difference is both notable and distressing.”

Casey shrugs, just barely, trying for that ‘no big deal’ look that Miles always manages. When Dr. Naser holds the pictures up, he tries not to really look at them. He doesn’t like to look at pictures of himself anyway, really. He can see the difference, and it’s more than it looks in the mirror. It’s not that he can’t see it, though; it’s that he honestly doesn’t care how he looks in either picture. 

“Not impressed, hmm?” Dr. Naser says. “I have some detailed diagrams and photographs of what an eating disorder can do to the heart. Let’s take a look at those, shall we?”

 

**Sunday, September 16th, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Miles**

Just like he told Ma, Miles is grounded. Nobody had to do it do him, though. Not Ma, not even Karofsky, threats aside. Miles grounded himself from Casey, because it’s readily apparent that Miles is just making things worse. It sucks, and it’s pretty much the opposite thing of what he wants to do right now, especially since Casey keeps texting him and asking him where he’s at, why isn’t he answering texts, why does Casey keep missing him at school? Miles knows Casey thinks that _he’s_ the one who did something wrong, which Miles guesses he did by not eating, but it wasn’t Casey who lied to Coach about him eating – well, okay, Casey did that, too, but it’s not the same as Miles covering for him while he starves himself to death.

Miles manages to hold out through the whole week. He drives in to school at the last minute, leaves as soon as the bell rings if he doesn’t have football or goes straight to the locker room if he does, skips out on lunch—not that Casey _eats_ lunch, but he sits in there usually—and reroutes himself all over the school to avoid Casey, until Miles feels like he’s in one of those British television shows where the people keep running back and forth across the screen, with different folks chasing them in each direction, people dressed up like can-can dancers and bees and mummies in some of the passes across. Casey might actually watch some of those shows, now that Miles thinks about it.

On Saturday, Miles flat-out skips going to the center, even though he thinks it’s pretty unlikely that Casey’ll drive down there, since his texts—which keep getting more and more pitiful—seem to indicate he’s still grounded over a pair of shoes. Finally, Miles can’t stand it anymore, and since he’s the one who grounded himself, he decides he’s done, and he asks Ma to call Coach and find out if it’s still alright if Miles picks Casey up for the florist on Sunday morning. Miles figures it’s probably better if he goes through proper channels and all of that, all things considered.

Ma lets him know that Coach originally said Miles can pick Casey up in the morning and keep him until lunchtime, provided Casey actually eats some breakfast, or he can get Casey after lunch if Casey eats lunch. Before Miles can argue, Ma lets him know that she already bargained for all day, returning Casey by dinnertime, if Ma or Dad vouches for Casey eating lunch. Miles does spend a moment wondering if Coach wants photographic evidence, but then he remembers that probably not even Coach would dare to question Ma.

Miles gets the go-ahead that Casey surpassed whatever caloric baseline Coach has set for him at right around 8:45, and he's on the Desmonds' doorstep to pick up Casey at nine on the dot. Miles expects Coach to open the door, maybe yell at him or at least give him a lecture about lying, but instead it's Casey who answers the door. He just about flings himself at Miles, like he's barely seen another human being in days, and as Miles hugs him back and feels all Casey’s bones just beneath the thin layers of cotton T-shirt and skin, he wonders how he was ever fool enough not to notice just how skinny Casey's gotten. Maybe Miles is just as blind as charged.

"You didn't text me back all week!" Casey says, his arms still around Miles. "I was grounded!" he adds, sounding a little shocked by the very idea.

"Yeah, me, too," Miles says. Casey doesn't need to know Miles grounded himself. "You ready to go sort some flowers? We've got a dozen funeral wreaths to put together today. Real somber, but sorta cheap: lots of carnations."

Casey nods, looking almost like he's about to burst into tears, which is probably more than Miles can deal with today. Miles steers Casey towards the Versa, and manages to get the both of them buckled in without anybody crying. Miles thanks whoever for small  
mercies, and has them to the florist’s in no time at all.

The first pair of wreaths is just like Miles said, cheap and carnations, easy enough to assemble in near silence. The next one takes Black-eyed Susans, though, and Miles has to repeatedly talk Casey through the difference between those and the daisies, even though they look completely different to Miles and Casey’s never had any trouble keeping his flowers straight in the past. Casey keeps handing him gerbera daisies and Miles finally puts the wreath down and says, "Oh, just come here," opening up his arms.

Casey almost falls into them in relief, and Miles does feel a teensy bit guilty about that self-imposed grounding. "Miles, it's been so bad," Casey murmurs against Miles’ chest, where the side of his face is pressed against Miles’ shirt. "I went to Dr. Naser, and then she sent us to some other doctor she knows, that same day, and they drew all this blood and looked at my heart and things. It was terrible!"

Miles rests his arm across Casey’s back—and seriously, how did he miss that, all the sharp little knobs of Casey’s spine—and asks, though he’s afraid to know the answer, “They find anything? Anything that was bad–wrong?”

When Casey doesn’t answer right away, Miles holds his breath and waits for how bad it could be, but Casey finally shakes his head. “They said nothing permanent. Yet. They said ‘yet’ a lot.”

Miles tightens the arm around Casey. After Karofsky had said ‘permanent damage’, Miles started doing a little research online—after he lay on his bed for awhile thinking after his Ma left the room—because at first, all he could think was _skinny isn’t permanent_. Turns out it can be pretty damn permanent, though, along with all kinds of other horrible stuff, and if Casey had any of that, Miles would happily walk right into Karofsky’s fist and save him the effort of throwing the first punch.

“Yeah,” Miles says softly. “Yeah, I bet.” He wraps his other arm around Casey again and holds him closer. “Shit, Cherry. I don’t know what to say. We all messed this up so bad. I am _so_ sorry.”

“No, it’s me, _I’m_ sorry,” Casey says, and Miles can feel him shaking a little, turning his face so his nose is squished right into the center of Miles’ chest. “I’m really sorry, Miles.”

“Don’t die on me, Cherry? Alright? You can’t do that. You’re not allowed to do that.” Miles rests his chin on top of Casey’s head and closes his eyes. He’d hold Casey even tighter, but now he can feel Casey’s bones and Casey suddenly seems too damn breakable. He’s just so _little_ , and they all let him get littler and littler, until they’re all lucky he didn’t disappear completely. “You gotta eat. If you’re with me, you gotta eat. That’s just how it’s gonna be when you’re with me, because I’m not watching you die. You got that?”

Casey nods against Miles’ chest, and they both give each other another little squeeze before Casey disentangles himself, wiping the back of his hand across his eyes. Miles figures that, at least, is something it’s okay to pretend not to notice.

“Now, come on back over here and help me get these next couple of wreaths done, so Ma can make herself feel better by making you a sandwich,” Miles says. “And don’t think that means you get to tell her no about the juice.”

 

**Tuesday, September 18th, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Taylor**

Taylor surveys the room, watching everyone come in for the second PFLAG meeting of the year. He’d sent Kurt an email after the first one, which Kurt was nice enough to reply to, even though he’s probably facepalming over high school issues now that he finally left. There was a lot of talking and a few times Taylor wasn’t sure if it was a good thing for sure or if they were getting derailed, like his dad talks about happening during faculty meetings. 

Still, Taylor hopes people will talk, and not obnoxiously, about the topic he finally decided on. ‘Famous Trans People’ seemed a little too narrow, but ‘The Rest of the Soups’ – that’s valid and it’s pretty uniquely McKinley, too. 

He knows that people who are gay, and lesbian to a lesser extent, don’t _mean_ to speak for the entire LGBTQI+ community, but it happens. When Taylor Googles or looks for resources, they’re focused in one or two directions only, and he’s not going to let that happen in their PFLAG group.

Plus, it’d be good to make sure people understand that sexuality or sexual attraction and gender identity are two separate things. So far, so good, but he’s had a few people ask him since March if he’s not just in denial about being a lesbian.

So many things wrong with that question. 

The stream of people into the room seems to stop, and Ms. Pillsbury-Schuester closes the door. Taylor glances around at the attendees; Brooklyn and Nat and their friends are all together, and there’s a clump of new freshman sitting together too. Casey looks like hell, now that Taylor thinks about it, so it’s probably good that Taylor’s leading the meeting this week. It gives Casey one less thing to think about, anyway. 

“Hey, welcome to PFLAG,” Taylor says, raising his voice just enough for the chatter to die down to a whisper. “Help yourself to some food. Nat brought pizza for us and it’d be a shame for her to have to take home any extra, so make sure and help her out by eating some.” He grins at Nat, who rolls her eyes. “So, yeah, if you weren’t here last time, I’m Taylor and if you’re _really_ behind, I’m trans. If you’re new, raise your hand so we can talk to you and welcome you. Like a scary church.” A few hands go up, and he nods. “Okay, so. Discussion topic today is ‘The Rest of the Soups’.”

When the rest of the newbies lower their hands, one dude leaves his hand up. Taylor gestures for him to go ahead. “Yeah, so what’s this ‘Soups’ thing you guys keep talking about?” the dude asks. 

Taylor laughs. “One of our meetings last year, we started talking about all the different letters, and that week, someone had brought in actual soup for the snack. And Brittany, one of the seniors last year, said we should have had alphabet soup. It kinda stuck.” 

Brooklyn and Nat both raise their fists in the air and shout “Team Soups!” followed by a loud whoop. There’s some scattered laughter and a few more confused looks after that.

“Roger, who is…” Taylor looks around. “Ha. Over there. Roger’s got a couple of copies of the documentary if you want to check those out. He also probably has copies for sale if you’re interested in that. Also called _Alphabet Soup_.”

“Don’t try to check things out from Roger!” Casey interjects. “PFLAG has two copies. And a binder! For, um, checking them out. So _buy_ them from Roger or check them out from us.”

“Right.” Taylor shrugs, because he’s still not really paying attention to the paperwork stuff. “Any other questions about the soup thing?”

If there are, no one admits it, so Taylor goes back to looking around the room, seeing if someone’s going to speak up. There’s a few shrugs before Nat starts to speak. 

“You mean, everything that’s under the ‘Q’ or do you actually mean what I _think_ you mean?”

Taylor laughs. “I’m talking about how most organizations and resources that claim to be for the whole community seem to mostly be geared towards gay men. To a lesser extent, lesbians as well, but yeah.”

“That’s what I thought.” Nat nods. “Yeah, it’s a problem. I’m bi. And right now, I have a girlfriend. But I have dated a guy, and I don’t like the idea of my queerness being erased if I’m with a guy for awhile.”

Taylor nods. “Makes sense. Yeah, I think maybe that’s a thing for people who are bisexual.” He looks around. “What about those of you that are straight? Do you think of only certain people being queer, or more queer than others?”

“Well, I grew up with Miles,” Alicia says, shaking her head a little. “So no. But it does seem like we hear more about ‘gay marriage’ or ‘gay that’ than some other things.”

“Shouldn’t people and the media use ‘marriage equality’ instead of ‘gay marriage’, anyway?” Tim asks, and Taylor nods. 

“So basically what you’re saying is that out of all the letters, the ‘G’, and the ‘L’ to a lesser extent, get all the attention?” One of the new girls looks thoughtful. “Huh. I don’t think I realized that. I mean, now that you say it, it’s pretty obvious there’s not a lot about trans issues or anything.”

Taylor grimaces a little. “Yeah, tell me about it. There’s usually a little spate of coverage if someone well-known comes out as trans, and then, nope. We disappear again. So. Let’s talk about examples, maybe.”

“ _Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy!_ ” Brooklyn suddenly sings. “ _But here’s examples, so take notes, maybe?_ ”

 

**Wednesday, September 19th, 2012: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Wednesday morning workout during the season is light: just a few weight machines and then a long jog that’s more focused on distance than time. Sometimes the team runs as a group, but more often than not, they run alone or in small groups of two or three. Dave tries to get into the weight room a little early on Wednesday, especially because he has a test in his eleven o’clock class, and he’s the only one ready to run when he sets out.

He changes into his running shoes and grabs his earbuds, securing them before heading out of the locker room and onto the sidewalk. He scrolls to the playlist he’s looking for and then hits play, looking around to make sure no one nearby seems to be hearing any of his music leaking out of his earbuds. Just to be safe, he turns the volume down a little more, then picks up his pace.

Dave’s sure that there are, somewhere, some straight guys that listen to Adam Lambert on their daily runs. Dave’s just equally sure that he hasn’t met any of them, and his roommates knowing is a lot different than announcing that he’s gay via overheard workout music.

It wasn’t like he set out to listen to gay artists or anything, but after that PFLAG meeting with all the It Gets Better videos, Dave had gone home and rewatched the ones that Kurt had shown during the meeting. He’d watched a few more and then somehow had ended up on a music video for one of Adam Lambert’s actual songs.

Dave had initially been chagrined when he realized he _liked_ it. He’d been more chagrined when he realized it wasn’t a one–song fluke. He’d downloaded Adam Lambert’s first album later that week and the second album as soon as it was released.

Apparently, he had at least one thing about his tastes that screamed gay.

After his run is over and he showers, he puts his earbuds back in as he walks to class. When Danny asks what he’s listening to, he lies without thinking about it, because there’s still a tiny part of him that says, _Really, Dave? Adam Lambert?_ It isn’t enough to keep him from listening on the way to his CS test and the rest of his classes, or on the way to practice, though, and it definitely doesn’t stop him from still listening to the same playlist after dinner, when he heads to the Pride Alliance meeting.

After the business portion of the meeting, the rest of it is mostly about Atlanta Pride: who’s marching, who’s not, and Dave’s a little confused at first about why Pride is in October.

Someone else asks before he can, though, and one of the upperclassmen grins and explains. “It’s hot here in the summer. Too hot for an outdoor festival and a parade. So we get our party on in the fall instead.”

Dave doesn’t sign up to march in the parade, though a lot of the people there are going to march. There’s apparently a large contingent from Tech each year, but there are still people who aren’t going to march.

“Have you been to Pride before?” one of the guys who’s been around for four or five years asks Dave.

“Columbus, Ohio, back in June,” Dave answers. “Went with some people from my old high school.”

“Is it big?”

Dave shrugs. “No clue. I mean, it wasn’t super-crowded, but there were plenty of people. And I had the distinct pleasure, or lack thereof, of seeing one of my old teammates in really tight shiny shorts.” He laughs. “How big is Atlanta Pride?”

“Oh, it’s _huge_. Not quite a hundred thousand.”

“A hundred thousand people?” Dave’s pretty sure his jaw literally dropped. “Really? That’s incredible.”

“Oh, it’s the best weekend of the year. Seriously.” The guy grins. “Don’t ever plan something else the weekend of Pride. You’ll hate yourself.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

When he leaves the meeting, no one else is headed towards his part of campus, and he pops his earbuds back in. He’s halfway back to his dorm, listening to the last bit of his playlist, when he starts to laugh at himself. He pulls up his text message screen and quickly types out a sentence to Casey.

_I just realized that I have had a very gay day._

 

**Monday, September 24th, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

Time trials aren’t dramatic enough to be considered a disaster, but that doesn’t mean Casey walks away from them feeling good about himself or his time. Qualifying doesn’t feel like any kind of win, because the only standard to actually be on the swim team is to not sink, and even at his worst time, Casey is a lot better than not–sinking. That’s not the hard part.

No, the hard part starts with walking to the pool in his swimsuit and having people stare at him. Casey never actually gave much thought to how he looked in a swimsuit or anything else before. Whatever rationale Shannon and Dr. Naser may have conjured up, it really never had anything to do with that. He didn’t care if he gained weight or lost weight. Shannon’s all excited that he’s put on two pounds over the last almost two weeks, because it pushes his weight back up to 105. Casey doesn’t _care_ what he weighs.

Even now, with everybody freaking out about his weight and what he should eat, he doesn’t really apply it to how he looks until he sees the expression on the faces of some of the people he swam with during the summer. It’s the same expression Shannon and Monty had after they made him stand on the scale, and the same one Miles makes every time he hugs Casey now. It’s the ‘you’re too skinny’ face, and that’s the face they’re all making, and not because they looked at numbers and compared them to charts.

Casey does his best to ignore it, but once he gets in the water, he can’t ignore the fact that he just can’t swim as fast as he could by the end of the summer season. He doesn’t drown or anything, and he’s not even the slowest, but he knows his time is really bad compared to what it should be, and he’s exhausted when he gets out of the pool. His legs are shaky and he has to sit down on the bench pretty fast.

Coach Brum doesn’t say anything, other than to tell Casey his time. He makes the ‘you’re too skinny’ face, too, but he doesn’t ask any questions this time, and that’s how Casey knows Shannon has talked to him at some point. Casey takes a wild guess that he won’t be allowed to pawn his Powerbars off on his teammates anymore. Probably he shouldn’t want to, anyway.

Casey should have been conditioning more to get ready for time trials, but Shannon won’t let him run and swim until he’s eaten however many calories. Sometimes it’s just too much that she expects him to eat, so he has to pick either running _or_ swimming for that day. Even then, he’s so tired after. Casey doesn’t want to admit it—partly because he doesn’t want Shannon or Dr. Naser to be right, but also because he doesn’t want it to be true—but he’s really not okay at all. Maybe he hasn’t been for a while. 

 

**Friday, September 28th, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Miles**

It’s been a hell of a month, and Miles is just happy to have beat the shit out of another team in football, because it’s a win, and winning feels good. Nevermind that the recruiter from Clemson saw that catch in the third quarter; Miles doesn’t _need_ an audience to play a beautiful game of football. 

Doesn’t hurt, though.

Miles gets showered up and into his street clothes, then goes to look for Coach, who’s supposed to be waiting with the recruiter. Seems like the recruiters last year liked to talk to people before the game or right after, but the guy from Clemson apparently has a sensitive nose and don’t like football–stink. If that’s the case, he’s awfully picky for a guy with an ugly–ass logo tie and navy pants, Miles thinks, but whatever it takes. 

“Miles,” Coach greets him. “Miles, this is Mr. Bannister from Clemson. Mr. Bannister, Miles Brown.”

Mr. Bannister offers his hand, his smile looking forced. “Nice to meet you, son.” He nods at Coach. “Thanks, Coach.” Coach nods back and walks towards another recruiter who supposedly came to watch one of the other seniors play.

Miles isn’t too keen on this guy calling him son, but since he knows who his daddy is, Miles supposes he can grin his way through it this once. He takes Mr. Bannister’s hand and shakes it firmly. “Nice to meet you, sir. You enjoy the game?”

“I did, I did.” Mr. Bannister’s smile looks less forced. “You had some good catches out there this evening. So tell me, what kind of program do you see yourself playing with?”

“One that’s gonna get me some Bowl play,” Miles says bluntly. “I’m looking for an established program. Had somebody out here last week from one of the new programs, and it’s just not really what I’m looking for.”

“Well, I think Clemson might be a good fit for you. As you probably know, we’ve been consistently ranked, and last year we won the ACC.” Mr. Bannister gets more enthusiastic as he continues. “We have some top-notch facilities, too. Our weight room is better than the weight rooms for some training facilities the pros use.”

Miles did a little reading about recruiting in general, and Clemson specifically after Coach told him they were coming out to look at him, so he knows there’s facts and then there’s _talk_ , so he just nods along. “Yes sir, Clemson’s got a great reputation for that, too.”

Mr. Bannister perks up further at that comment. “Good to know, even up here. You know, it’s a lot warmer at Clemson, too.” He stands with his hands on his hips and nods, looking around the stadium. “Yep, there’s a lot to like about Clemson. And you’re the kind of athlete we’re looking for.”

“Sir,” Miles says, grinning, “I’m the kind of athlete everybody’s looking for.”

“I like that attitude,” Mr. Bannister says, chuckling. “I’m going to have to remember that one, in fact.” He reaches into a pocket and pulls out a business card. “Tell you what, Miles Brown. Email me this weekend or Monday, and let’s set up a time for you to come down and check out Clemson.”

“I surely will do that,” Miles says, as he takes the card and slips it into his back pocket. By this time next year, Miles might be playing against Karofsky. He ignores the funny little voice in the back of his head that adds ‘again’.


	5. October 2012

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pride, prejudice, and Butter Nibs.

**Friday, October 5th, 2012: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

When Dave gets back from a quick study session after dinner, Coop and Danny are sitting in the living area, huddled around Danny’s laptop. “Oh, no, Miss Butter Nibs!” Danny wails. 

“Miss _who_?” Dave asks.

“Shhhh,” Coop hisses. “The RA’s still in the room. She might notice the box.” He eats a handful of popcorn, slowly shaking his head. “I’m worried about that cat.”

Dave walks slowly over to the refrigerator, watching Coop and Danny as he grabs a pop and opens it. Maybe they’ve finally cracked from the pressure of classes and football combined. “Did you just say you were worried about an RA and a cat?”

“Yeah, Britt left the Butter Nibs cam on, and that RA’s snooping around again,” Coop says. “Wish Britt didn’t have to leave the cat in the box during class, though. I don’t think it can breathe enough in there.”

“The Butter Nibs cam? Is that some kind of… food product?”

“Special K, I swear if you don’t stop asking questions and just come and watch the show,” Coop says, cramming another handful of popcorn into his mouth. 

“Miss Butter Nibs is the cat,” Danny shushes Dave. 

“I, uh.” Dave walks around so he can see the laptop, and there’s the ‘Fondue for Two’ heading, along with a constant view of a fluffy white cat in a box. “I guess Britt has a new cat,” he says, more or less to himself.

Coop holds the bowl of popcorn out in Dave’s direction. Dave shakes his head and takes a handful, amused that his roommates seem to make an event out of watching Brittany’s absurd take on the world.

“She’s not supposed to even have that cat,” Coop explains. “She just has so much love in her heart for animals. And apparently Lord Tubbington won’t Skype with her anymore.”

“That’s a damn shame,” Dave manages to say straight-faced. “But I’m unsurprised that she found another cat.”

“Oh, no. She didn’t find Miss Butter Nibs,” Danny whispers. “Miss Butter Nibs found _her_. They needed each other.”

“She’s kinda ugly–ass, though,” Dave says. “The cat, I mean. Her face’s all squished.” 

“I think she’s a Persian,” Coop explains. “They’re ugly on purpose. My great aunt had a couple of ’em. Ugliest cats I’ve ever seen, but Britt says it makes Miss Butter Nibs fit in the box better.” He looks thoughtful for a moment. “Though I guess that might not be a great thing. That cat’s gonna smother in there one of these days.”

“Why didn’t she get a cat carrier?” Danny asks, frowning. “She still could have had it hidden by her bedcovers.”

“Maybe it’s because a cat carrier might be obvious, dumbass!” Coop smacks Danny upside the back of his head. “Think! You see a cat carrier in there, you know there’s a cat around somewhere! Any old shit can be in a plain cardboard box.”

Ty comes in, then, and before he even shuts the door, he’s looking towards Coop and Danny. “Is that the Butter Nibs cam?”

“Have all of you gone crazy?” Dave mutters. “How did I miss it?”

“Yeah, the RA’s in there,” Coop answers Ty. “She’s been in there for ten minutes now, pawing through Britt’s stuff.”

“I didn’t think that was even legal!” Danny adds.

“Maybe the laws are different in Florida,” Ty says, sounding very reasonable about it, like this is somehow all normal. 

“Naw, see, we have two serious issues here,” Coop insists. “One is that this RA is invading Britt’s privacy, and the other is that Miss Butter Nibs is gonna suffocate in that box right there on the live feed if this shit keeps on.”

“I’m really stuck back on trying to figure out how these became serious issues in your lives,” Dave says. “What’s next? Some kind of all-night watching party while she has Miss Butter Nibs taste-test pudding and Jell-O cups?”

“Oh, hey, Special K, that’s a great idea! I’m gonna leave a comment about that,” Danny says way too enthusiastically. Dave would think Danny was joking, except it’s Danny, so clearly: he’s not.

“We’ve been watching this for weeks now,” Coop says. “How’d you miss it?”

“Special K actually does real schoolwork, remember?” Ty says, grinning. “Plus, you know.” He sobers and shrugs. “All the stuff with Casey.”

Coop and Danny both nod like that makes sense, then Coop asks, “How’s his swimming going?”

“Has he set up any more filing systems? That color–coding thing is pretty cool.” Danny looks at Dave expectantly. 

“Uh. Swim season hasn’t started yet, so, you know. Getting ready for that,” Dave answers. “And I think just the two, one for Coach and then one for PFLAG.” He starts to wonder if they have some kind of vested interest in everything about Dave’s life back in Lima. 

“Next time you talk to him, ask him if he thinks Miss Butter Nibs is gonna suffocate first or get found by that RA first,” Coop says, turning his attention back to the screen. “We should start a pool.”

“I’m just afraid she’s going to get confiscated and Britt’s going to get written up or something,” Ty says solemnly. 

“I like the idea of starting a pool, though,” Danny says with a nod. 

“I feel like I’m in the twilight zone,” Dave confesses.

“It’s like any given day, until we check in with the Butter Nibs cam, that cat could be alive or it could be dead, and we have no way of knowing,” Coop says. “It’s like Schroedinger’s Butter Nibs.”

“Definitely the twilight zone,” Dave repeats, muttering to himself as he goes back into the kitchen for another pop. He looks for some ice cream in the top and decides that Danny won’t miss a few scoops of rocky road. “This is the most bizarre Friday night.”

“Aww, Special K, you mean you aren’t thrilled that your college friends are so invested in the life of one of your high school friends?” Ty puts his hand over his heart and grins. “I’m so hurt.”

Dave levels a flat look at him and shakes his head. “Yeah, right.”

“Oh, shit!” Coop suddenly says. “Is that Britt coming back in?” He offers the popcorn bowl to Ty and then hands it to Danny. 

Danny takes the bowl without looking, since he’s still staring eagerly at the laptop screen. “This is gonna be good!”

 

**Saturday, October 13th, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

_Swimmers for Equality_ Casey texts back to David.

 _Haha! Diving for Legal Representation, maybe?_ David texts.

Casey makes a face at his phone before he texts _DIVERS? Oh please, like they’d make the effort_

“Who are you talking to?” Miles asks, craning his neck to look over Casey’s shoulder. “That Shep?”

“Maybe,” Casey answers, laughing when Dave responds with _hey, I heard some of the synch divers at the olympics were partners in more than one way_.

“Yeah, it’s gotta be Shep if you’re giggling like that,” Miles says. “Tell him I said hey.”

“No,” Casey says, without looking up from his phone, where he’s texting back _Okay but just those two guys would show up_. “I won’t.”

“Fine,” Miles says, stretching out on the sofa and propping one foot on Casey’s leg. “Then tell him you told me you won’t say I said hey.”

“Oh, I’ll definitely… _not_ do that. Not at all,” Casey says, still not really looking at Miles. He doesn’t have to, not to know that Miles is giving him that _look_ , the one that says he expects Casey to do exactly what Miles wants him to do. Casey’s seen Miles give people that look on quite a few occasions; usually it ends in Miles leaving with someone for an hour, sometimes two or three, but sometimes it ends in Miles conning someone out of the last cookie. 

“Then tell him that I told you to tell him you won’t say I said hey, and that you still said no,” Miles says, sounding a little surprised that the answer is still no. “You tell him I said that.”

“I don’t even know what that thing you just said even means, Miles,” Casey responds, while he’s waiting for David to respond to his text. “So, I guess, um. Still no.”

“Then tell him I said you’re looking real good, and that I think you’ve gained some weight,” Miles says. His left foot joins his right foot, resting on Casey’s leg.

“What? Why would I tell him that? I’m not telling him that.”

 _What about Gay Gymnasts?_ David’s next text asks.

 _Redundant_ , Casey types back. _You can just say Gymnasts_

“Tell him you ate a taco for lunch yesterday. Whole taco, the whole thing, with the cheese and the meat and all of that,” Miles says. “You tell him that.”

“ _Miles_ ,” Casey says, knowing how exasperated he sounds. “You can just text him yourself if you want to tell him weird stuff like that.”

“But he won’t believe it coming from me, Cherry! You’ve gotta tell him!”

“Um. No. That’s still a no.”

“No fun at all,” Miles grumbles. “He’d wanna know how good you’re doing, is all I’m saying. I know, let’s take a picture and send it to him! Give me your phone, Cherry.”

Miles holds his hand out expectantly, big confident smile on his face, and Casey pulls the phone away. “No! I’m not texting him a picture!”

“Oh, I think you are, Cherry.”

“No, I’m not!” Casey insists. “I’m not texting him a picture!”

“Oh yeah?” Miles asks, moving his foot slightly on Casey’s leg, until his toes are behind the back of Casey’s knee. “You sure about that.”

“Yes. I’m totally sure that— _Miles!_ ” Miles’ toes suddenly dig into the back of Casey’s knee, into the ticklish part, and Casey squawks and almost drops his phone. Miles dives for it, and Casey snatches it up again, which makes Miles divert his course and poke Casey right in the rib cage. “Miiiiiles!” Casey squeals, pulling his phone in tight against his chest and curling into a ball around it.

“Phone, Cherry! Now!” Miles says. He’s laughing, and he reaches around Casey so he’s tickling his ribs on both sides. Casey laughs and flails and then sorts of rolls right onto the floor with a plunk, pulling Miles along with him.

Casey keeps yelling “Miles!” and Miles keeps tickling him, and Casey kicks his legs when Miles digs one thumb under Casey’s arm where it’s _really_ ticklish, and somehow the end result is that Casey finds himself pinned to the floor, Miles sitting on top of him, and Casey’s phone in Miles’ hand.

“I win!” Miles announces, and snaps a picture of Casey. He types something else into Casey’s phone, holding it too high for Casey to reach it, but when he’s done he gets a look on his face, like he’s not sure now exactly what to do. It’s a funny, unfamiliar look for Miles, since Miles always acts like he knows what he’s doing, even when he doesn’t at all. He keeps sitting on top of Casey for another minute, the two of them staring at each other with this weird current passing between them. Miles abruptly hands Casey back his phone and stands up, brushing at his clothes like he’s dusty, before settling himself back down on the sofa, looking confused, almost startled, even.

Casey hauls himself back up onto the sofa and checks his phone. Sure enough, Miles has sent a picture of Casey to David. Casey looks downright irate in the picture, glaring straight ahead with his nose wrinkled up and his face pink, hair flying all over the place. It looks like a picture taken under duress, more than it does like a picture taken in the middle of being pinned to the ground and tickled, and in an odd way that’s actually something of a relief.

“Now Shep can see how good you’re doing, since you won’t tell him,” Miles says. His voice sounds a little weird, and he doesn’t prop his feet back up on Casey’s leg again.

Casey shakes his head and quickly types out a message to David: _Ignore that please. It was a hostage situation, resolved now_

 

**Sunday, October 14th, 2012: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

“It’s Sunday, Special K,” Ty says, looking almost startled as Dave walks through the apartment, clearly heading out. “You never go anywhere on Sunday except to workout or maybe the ARCH building.” He stops and narrows his eyes. “What’s going on?”

Dave laughs. “Dude. Don’t you pay attention to the news at all, ever?”

“No,” Ty says with a snort. “I am stunningly unaware of what’s going on in the world. You should know that by now.”

“It’s Pride this weekend,” Dave says. “Parade’s in a couple of hours. I’m just going to walk over, grab a hotdog at the Varsity on my way, find a good spot on Peachtree to watch from.”

“Ohh, Pride.” Ty nods. “Gotcha. And you’re just wearing your normal clothes because…?”

“Because I don’t own any tight shiny green shorts,” Dave answers matter-of-factly. “Or clear pants. Or a shirt that says ‘Loves Guys That Love Cock’, come to think of it, all of which are apparently acceptable Pride attire.”

“Did the shirt go with the clear pants or the shiny green shorts?” Ty asks, frowning.

“Neither,” Dave laughs. “But the attendees of Atlanta Pride are just going to have to take my normal attire.”

“Special K special,” Ty agrees. “Have fun.”

“I will,” Dave says, and he nods before heading into the hall.

Campus activity is about normal for a Sunday, but the Varsity is definitely busier, and by the time Dave reaches the MARTA station, the sidewalks are congested with people. A lot of them are dressed just like Dave, or maybe in T-shirts with some kind of pride slogan; only a few of them are dressed like Puck was back at Columbus Pride and Dave manages to avoid seeing any clear pants.

He settles into a spot at the corner of Peachtree and North Avenue, not right in front, but Dave figures he can see well enough, plus it’d be kind of douchey for him to block some shorter people’s view. He leans on the low brick wall and watches the people heading down the sidewalk. There’s people greeting friends a little bit, but not to the extent that there was at the Columbus Pride.

That’s probably because there really are so many more people, though. Dave looked at the parade route ahead of time and if it’s this crowded all along the streets and sidewalks, then Dave can’t even begin to comprehend how many people must be watching. There was even a note on the website that they would have a live stream of the parade, through one of the local news channels, and he feels absurdly like paraphrasing _The Wizard of Oz_ : he’s not in Ohio anymore.

There’s two men standing nearby that are talking quietly, their heads bent together, and when Dave glances to his left again, he sees that they’ve gone from talking to kissing. While he’s still studying the expanse of Peachtree to the north, they start making out, and Dave realizes they must have, inexplicably, forgotten they were in the middle of the sidewalk in the midst of a hundred thousand people. He turns his head to the right, trying to give the pair a little bit of privacy, even though he spots a few people who aren’t as considerate.

“First Pride?” Dave startles and looks back to his left, where a slightly older blond guy is almost bouncing in place.

“Ah, no,” Dave says. “First Atlanta Pride, though.”

“Ooh, you’re in for a treat! Where are you from?”

“Ohio. I went to Pride in Columbus in June.”

“A Midwestern boy,” the guy says appraisingly. “And are you settling into Atlanta well?”

“Uh, yeah,” Dave answers, wondering if the guy’s appointed himself the welcome wagon for Pride or something. Does Dave have a sign on him that screams ‘New to Atlanta’ or something?

“Well, if you decide you want a native to give you some tips, let me know.” The guy grins and hands Dave a piece of paper. “There’s my digits, just text me! I’m Blake,” he adds, already starting to walk away.

“Thanks, Blake,” Dave says, staring between Blake’s back and the piece of paper perplexedly. “That was so weird,” he says quietly to himself, shaking his head.

Before Dave can dwell very much on it, though, there’s a slow cheer making its way up Peachtree, and soon enough, Dave can see the beginning of the parade. People stop walking up and down the sidewalks, everyone is practically beaming, and Dave suddenly understands what the guy at Pride Alliance meant. There are hundreds of people immediately around Dave, thousands of people watching the parade, and everyone there is alphabet soup, from A down to the ‘plus’ that Casey mentioned Taylor using.

Dave waves at the contingent from Georgia Tech when they pass by; it took longer than he expected to see them, but then, the entire parade is longer than even his biggest estimate. The floats and groups just keep coming, all of them full of people who are just happy to be there and marching. The truth is, Dave didn’t really have a good sense for what they meant when they said that Atlanta Pride was huge, not even after he had a rough idea of the number of attendees. Now, though; now he gets it.

The parade is, he thinks, nearly at the end when he hears two girls talking down to his right, almost on the corner, and he realizes suddenly that Blake wasn’t a welcome wagon. “I think he was hitting on me,” Dave whispers out loud, and the noise of everyone talking and cheering, not to mention the music from the floats, means no one hears him. “But— that’s just bizarre.”

Dave knows that sometimes people do hit on other people, pick up dates or a date for a night, and everything like that, at Pride. He just didn’t expect for anyone to hit on him or hand him their number. He’s just Dave, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and leaning against a brick wall. Just a football player trying to make an architecture major work. Why would someone be hitting on him, even at Pride?

 

**Saturday, October 20th, 2012: Dayton, Ohio — Casey**

Casey's engaged enough with his book that he barely glances up when he notices Miles giving him the cursory check-in look that means he's off in search of a hook-up, or more accurately that he's already found one. Casey nods back absently, not sure and not really caring if Miles notices or not. It's just the little ritual of courtesy they observe, and that alone is enough.

Casey doesn't want to read any further yet, because he's enjoying the story enough to want to savor it, so he tucks his book away and wanders over to the snack table, where he picks up a single sugar cookie and slowly eats it while he scans the room and plays his little game of 'guess who's missing' to try to figure out who Miles might have left with. He doesn't win at the game today, but he almost never wins, since he mostly doesn't pay enough attention to the other people at the center anyway, beyond Miles, April, and the handful of kids from various area schools who also run or help run PFLAG or GSA groups.

Peter from Troy’s PFLAG—and also apparently from Monty’s glee club, the Trojammers, which is probably the worst name for a glee club ever—waves Casey over to where he and his boyfriend are sitting, in a little cluster of chairs in the back corner of the room. Casey sits down in the empty chair next to Peter’s boyfriend, Ryan, who offers him a plate with cheese and crackers. Casey hadn’t even noticed there being cheese and crackers on the snack table, though Peter or Ryan could have maybe packed their own, and he does take one cracker to be polite. He balances it on his knee while he eats his cookie.

They talk about the Troy PFLAG meetings, which still don’t have a super-high turnout, and some things Peter’s considering trying. After that, they talk about fundraising for a while, until Ryan gets bored and changes the subject.

“It doesn’t bother you to get ditched like that every week?” Ryan asks Casey.

“Um. Oh, you mean Miles?” Casey says.

“You guys always show up together, but then he ditches you for hours,” Ryan says.

“It’s true. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him stay for longer than a half an hour before he’s going off with somebody,” Peter agrees. “And it’s _never_ the same somebody.”

Casey shrugs. “Well, that’s Miles. It’s how Miles is. He probably doesn’t know how to be any other way than how he is, but I like him fine how he is,” he says. “Why would it bother me?”

Peter and Ryan exchange a weird look and then Peter says, “No reason, I guess.”

“Miles has very high new friends needs,” Casey explains. “Though I guess he might run out of new friends eventually, and then he’ll have to start over at the beginning with the friends he’s already made.” He considers that possibility for a moment, then adds, “Or move, I guess.”

“That’s good, that he makes a lot of friends,” Peter says.

“Courteney looked excited to be his friend, anyway,” Ryan agrees.

“Courteney’s a funny sort of name,” Casey muses, finishing his cookie and picking up the cracker that’s still balancing on his knee. “Makes me think of _Quick and the Dead_. Sounds like a cowboy name. Or a girl name, I guess.”

“Well, yeah, Courteney’s a girl,” Ryan says. “She’s that tall girl with the long pink hair.”

Casey narrows his eyes slightly. “No, that doesn’t sound right. There must be another Courteney.”

“Only one that I know of, and she’s the one who left with Miles earlier. With the pink hair,” Ryan assures him.

“Miles left with a _girl_?” Casey asks. “Are you sure he left with a girl? I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t do that.”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Ryan insists. “Courteney. Pink hair. Girl. Anyway, isn’t he bi?”

“He just… loves all the people,” Casey says quietly. “That’s a different Soup letter, I think. He really left with a girl? Really?”

“Does that bother you?” Peter asks.

“What? No, it— well, maybe. No. I mean, no, it doesn’t bother me,” Casey says. “Why would it bother me? It doesn’t bother me.”

“I think it bothers him,” Peter says to Ryan.

“It doesn’t!” Casey says, a little too loudly, which means a few heads turn in his direction. “I said it doesn’t bother me.”

“Okay, it doesn’t bother you,” Peter says. “You just look like you’re getting upset.”

“I’m _not_ getting upset. I don’t have any reason to get upset!” Casey insists, even though he is upset, even if he isn’t exactly sure why. Miles leaves with people every single Saturday, and it’s never upset him before. There’s no reason why Miles can’t make whatever new friends he wants, even if those friends are girls.

Except he _can’t_ make whatever new friends he wants if those friends are girls. That’s just… _not okay at all_ , Casey decides. If Miles wants new friends who are girls, he should just meet them in Lima, and not expect Casey to drive him to Dayton so he can meet them. He could drive himself to meet girls, or any other new friends. Casey’s not some kind of taxi service just because his car is yellow, and he can stay at home on a Saturday to read his books, he doesn’t have to drive all the way to Dayton to do it.

“Do you need another cracker?” Peter asks. “I think you crushed that one.”

Casey looks down at the cracker in his hand, or more accurately, at the handful of cracker crumbs that used to be a cracker. “Um. No thank you. I think I need to, um. Go. I’m going to go.”

Either Peter or Ryan says something, but Casey doesn’t quite catch it, because he’s too busy standing up and stomping out of the center. At first, he thinks he’ll just stand outside for a few minutes and try to figure out why he’s suddenly so mad, but instead he decides that he’s perfectly _fine_ with being mad, and it’s not something he needs to figure out. He gets into the Lemon, cranks the engine, and peels out of the parking lot towards the Interstate.

“I can’t _believe_ him,” Casey mutters to himself, as he merges onto I-75 northbound, heading back towards Lima. “Why would he _do_ that?”

Fifteen minutes up the highway, Casey is even madder than he was when he left the center. “It’s not my job to drive him to hook-ups,” he says aloud. It sounds pretty good out loud. “ _Girl_ hook-ups. I don’t have to drive Miles Brown to any kind of hook-ups or anywhere else. His _girl_ friend can drive him home.”

By a half hour into the drive back to Lima, Casey’s devolved into full-blown out loud ranting about how Miles Brown doesn’t really need Casey to come with him to the center at all, and why does Casey even bother? “I’m gone, and he probably doesn’t even _know_! He probably hasn’t even noticed because he’s too busy with that _girl_!”

Casey’s set on continuing all the way to Lima, plus turning off his ringer so Miles can’t even _call_ him, for about another five minutes up the highway. Then, Casey suddenly realizes that even if Miles doesn’t currently know Casey is gone, he’s bound to figure it out pretty quickly once he gets back, and he’ll worry. Miles will worry, and if he calls Casey and the ringer is off, then he’ll really worry, and he might actually get _really upset_ , and how would Casey feel if Miles left _him_ at the center and then didn’t call, and it’s not like Casey really _minds_ if Miles has hook-ups.

He exits at the next ramp, crosses over the Interstate, and then turns to go south on I-75 again, back towards Dayton, driving a lot faster this time. He keeps checking the time on his phone, hoping he makes it back before Miles does, and apparently he’s driving _too_ fast, because just before the correct exit in Dayton, Casey’s rearview mirror is suddenly full of flashing blue and red lights.

Casey pulls the Lemon over to the shoulder of the road and tries not to panic. He keeps both hands on the steering wheel, just like David told him to do if he were ever pulled over, then he remembers he has to roll his window down, so he does that and then puts his hands right back on the steering wheel.

The police officer leans down to look in Casey’s window. “You in a hurry to get somewhere?”

The appropriate answer is probably “no sir,” but instead, Casey blurts out, “Miles Brown!”

“I’m not familiar with that destination,” the officer says. “License and registration, please. I clocked you doing 79 in a 65.”

“I’m so sorry!” Casey says, as he hands over his license and registration paperwork. He’s on the verge of tears, because what kind of terrible friend leaves someone stranded in a city over an hour from home? “I left Miles Brown in Dayton because I was mad at him, but then I realized that was horrible! I mean, who does that, leaves people in the middle of Dayton?” Casey’s voice gets higher, and he adds, “Me! Apparently, it’s me, I do that! I abandon Miles in Dayton! And I was trying to get back before he noticed that I abandoned him with a girl with pink hair!”

The officer doesn’t really acknowledge any of that before he walks back to his car. In the few minutes before the officer returns, Casey rests his forehead on his steering wheel and tries not to think about what’s going to happen when he brings a ticket back from Dayton with him. Maybe it won’t be that expensive. Maybe he can just pay it and nobody will ever have to know. Maybe he can just go back for Miles and the two of them can drive to the border, and then it’ll all be one big non-issue. Maybe Miles will be sympathetic about the ticket, and won’t be too mad that Casey left him in—

“Alright, I’m going to let you off with a warning,” the officer—who apparently reappeared outside Casey’s window while he was planning his Canadian exodus—says, handing Casey back his license, registration paperwork, and a long skinny piece of paper that’s probably the warning. “Slow down. I’m sure your friend doesn’t want you to get yourself killed.”

“No. No sir, he probably doesn’t!” Casey agrees, and he waits until the officer drives away to merge back onto the interstate, where he goes three miles under the speed limit until he gets to the exit ramp that will lead him back to the center.

Peter and Ryan give him another weird look when he walks back in, but he thinks the look he shoots back is a pretty great impression of Miles’ ‘no big deal’ face, like of course Casey would leave the center mad and then come back, why would they be surprised? He sits back down in the chair where Miles left him and pulls out his book.

Casey has turned exactly three pages when he hears Miles’ voice say, “Hey, Cherry. You only get that far? Must be a slow book, ’cause I figured you’d be done with it before I got back.”

“Miles!” Casey exclaims. “You’re back!”

“Yeah, I’m back,” Miles agrees. “You ready to head out or you got something going on you want to stick around for.”

“No, we can head out,” Casey says quickly. “That’s fine. Whatever you want to do!” He puts his book back into his backpack and slings it over his shoulder. “Only…"

“What, Cherry? Only what?”

“You’ve gotta wash your hands again before you touch my car,” Casey says, side–eyeing Miles. “I don’t know for sure where they’ve been. They could have been… places. Places that can’t touch my car.”

Miles laughs. “Not impressed about the girl, huh?”

“That’s probably a fair way to put it, yes,” Casey agrees. 

 

**Wednesday, October 24th, 2012: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Dave forces himself to finish a problem set for calculus after Pride Alliance before he picks up his phone and calls Casey, listening to the phone ring once before Casey answers.

“David! Hi! Hey,” Casey says. 

“Hey, Case. You destroyed Lima yet? Thousands are counting on you.”

“Only downtown. I ran out of time before I got to the residential zones. Did the crabs carry anybody off yet?”

“Not yet. We’re waiting for the game against Duke to unleash the crabs, I think,” Dave says with a chuckle. “Did you end up going down to the center last weekend?”

“Um.”

“That _was_ a yes or no question, I thought,” Dave says, puzzled.

“Oh, well, I mean. Yes, I did go. I went… and then I maybe came halfway back and then went back again. Kind of a little bit,” Casey says, sounding almost shifty. “There was a… Miles. Thing. A Miles thing.”

Dave laughs. “Did you forget him?”

“Ohhh, no I left him on purpose,” Casey say, very matter of factly. “I mean, you know, I _did_ go back for him.”

“Why?” Dave jokes. “I mean, what exactly did Miles do?” Dave has a satisfying image of Miles Brown, left in the dust of the Lemon, that’s somehow mixing with the scene at the drive-in from _Grease_ , which Dave ended up watching when Ty brought his date over and she insisted on that movie and no other.

“A _girl_!”

Casey sounds absolutely appalled. “A girl?” Dave repeats blankly. “He’s had sex with girls before, Case, you knew that. Why were you surprised?”

“Well… well, not ever with _me_ there! Not when I drove him places!” Dave can actually hear Casey shudder. 

“Still,” Dave says, a little confused. “You left him stranded—which is a hilarious image, by the way—because he hooked up with a girl and not a guy?”

“It sounds worse when you say it than it seemed at the time,” Casey insists. “It just seemed… I don’t know what it seemed. It just— well, I just thought it was…"

Dave chuckles. “Yeah, yeah. Okay. So, did I tell you about the fire drill on Monday?”

“You said there was one and you’d tell me about it when we talked later,” Casey says. 

“Yeah, that’s right. Okay, so Coach thought he was doing everyone a favor, let us out of practice about thirty minutes early, maybe even earlier than that. Everyone goes into the locker room. What Coach didn’t know was they’d planned a fire drill for Monday afternoon. They picked the time specifically so we wouldn’t be in the locker room, but then Coach let us out early, so. The alarm starts to go off and, shit, it was hilarious. Half the team was in the shower!”

There’s a slight pause, and then Casey squeaks, “Oh! Oh, that’s, um. Hilarious, like you said!”

“But everyone grabbed a towel or two or whatever and soon enough we’re all out on the sidewalk. There were some other students around snapping a few pictures, I think. They let the guys that were in the shower back in first. Poor Danny had shampoo in his hair.”

“Oh no! So, should I be on the lookout for pictures online? I mean, to _warn_ you about them being online!”

“Nah, not of me,” Dave says. “Coop took his shirt _off_ when the alarm started sounding, though. He would’ve stripped and run through a shower if he’d had time, I think.”

“Ohh, well. Um. That’s good. Not about Coop, I guess, because that’s kind of weird, but you know.” Casey lets out a high–pitched laugh. 

“Coop is definitely weird,” Dave agrees. “It’s too bad I couldn’t have had the fire drill during CS or something, though.”

“You still don’t like it?” Casey asks.

“It’s not that I don’t like it,” Dave tries to explain. “It’s just that I started the class missing a lot of experience and vocabulary that the rest of them all seem to have.”

“I bet everybody feels like that,” Casey says. “You’re probably doing much better than you think. You’ll know all of it by the end of the class.”

“Yeah, I don’t know,” Dave responds, but he doesn’t argue the point. “At least everyone in Fundamentals of Design started at the same place.”

“Is that one guy still falling asleep once a week?” Casey asks. “Did the professor ever notice?”

“That’s Intro to Design, yeah, and yeah, he totally is. Always on Wednesdays. I think she’s noticed but she just ignores him. I mean, if he does poorly, that’s on him.” 

“He needs more coffee,” Casey says. “More caffeine could help that. Maybe he doesn’t realize that brewed coffee has more caffeine than espresso. He should get a venti coffee before class. You should tell him that, David. He might not know that about the caffeine amounts.”

“I’ll do that,” Dave says. “But you think coffee is the answer to most things, Case.” He laughs and then catches sight of the time on his laptop and sighs. “Shit, I’d better do more homework.”

“Coffee could be the answer to more homework?” Casey offers, sounding hopeful. “But I guess I could maybe call you Friday night if you’re sure you _have_ to do the homework.”

Dave laughs half-heartedly. “Yeah, I’m sure, but Friday night’s good. If you strand Miles Brown anywhere else this week, take a picture for me, okay?”

“Tell me where you want him stranded and I can make it happen,” Casey says. “I bet Rick and Alicia would help.”

“I’ll let you three decide then. Night, Case.”

“Good-night, David,” Casey says softly, and there’s a long pause before Dave ends the call, because just like he’s always the one who has to go, he’s always the one who ends the call first.

 

**Saturday, October 27th, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Miles**

“Damn, boy,” Miles says, looking at the expansive pile of food in front of Taylor. “Where you plan to put all of that?”

“In my stomach,” Taylor says. “I mean, first I’ll chew it and everything. Why, dude, where do you put _your_ food?”

Miles eyes Taylor’s dinner dubiously. “You got a second stomach we don’t know about? Because I don’t think I could physically fit that much food into the one I’ve got. And I can fit a _lot_.” He winks at Casey when he says that, and Casey giggles and drinks his milkshake. Casey, for his part, has a small shake and a basket of fries, which isn’t much of a dinner by comparison, but it is a dinner at least. 

“Cows have four stomachs,” Rick announces. “Hey, maybe Taylor’s a bull? Are you a bull, Taylor?”

“Taylor is full of bull _shit_ ,” Miles retorts. “I’ll believe you can eat all that when it’s actually gone.”

“You’re hilarious, Miles,” Taylor says, rolling his eyes. “Fine. If I don’t eat it all, I’ll buy your ticket. I eat it all, you buy mine _and_ Maci’s.”

“He can eat it,” Casey whispers to Miles. “Just say no.”

“Hell no, Cherry, there’s no way,” Miles whispers back, then raises his voice to say, “Deal. But no sneaking fries into anybody else’s basket, got it?”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it,” Taylor says dismissively, picking up a burger and taking a bite. 

“Miles, that was dumb,” Casey says quietly. “He eats like Aunt Shannon eats. If he lived there instead of me, they’d go broke buying food. You should watch him at lunch some time. It’s just like Shannon!”

“Well, either I win or I lose,” Miles says, shrugging. “Eat your fries and I’ll buy you some candy at the movie, how’s that?”

“He’s already finished a whole burger,” Casey points out. “You won’t be able to afford to buy me any candy, because you’re buying three movie tickets.”

“So, we’re still seeing that one movie we talked about, right?” Rick says. Alicia humors him with a glance up from where she and Maci are plotting their next evil Cheerio scheme.

“I want to see it!” Maci says. She cuts her eyes over at Taylor, and then looks back at Alicia, and the two of them do a little evil Cheerio giggle. Definitely plotting, those two.

“Yeah, I think that’s a good idea,” Taylor says, interrupting his consumption of his basket of fries. “Should be fun.”

Alicia nods, though she’s staring at Rick. “I agree!”

“What movie?” Casey asks. He slowly nibbles on a fry, not looking particularly concerned about finishing them quickly. “Is it that singing movie? Nobody ever said.”

“I think we’re deciding when we get there,” Miles says, giving Alicia a pointed look. “A couple of things were starting at the same time.”

“Oh, okay.” Casey nods and keeps slowly nibbling his fry, and Miles almost feels a little bit guilty about not telling him what they’re actually going to see. He’s sure Casey wouldn’t go if he knew, though, so sometimes discretion is the better part of valor. Or of getting people to go see movies, anyway.

By the time Miles has finished his own basket of food, Taylor is piling up all of his trash and stacking his empty baskets. “Well, shit,” Miles says. “You might be right, Cherry. No candy for you.”

“I ate all of my fries!” Casey says. “You said candy. I was promised candy.”

“T makes you hungry,” Taylor says nonchalantly, then grins. “Maci, guess we’ll get to see another movie this week, thanks to Miles’ generosity. Or possibly it was just poor judgment.”

“Triple dates sure are fun,” Rick declares, with a big stupid smile on his face. Alicia elbows him, and the smile doesn’t exactly fade so much as just slide into the realm of confused. “What?”

“Foots,” Miles says, raising one eyebrow at him. “Think about what you just said.”

“What?” Rick repeats. “What’s wrong with what I just said.”

Miles tilts his head in Casey’s direction, but Rick just keeps on looking as confused as ever, so Miles just shakes his head. “Ignore him, Cherry. Classic Foots foot-in-mouth.”

“What?” Miles can hear Rick whispering to Alicia. “What’d I say?”

Casey shrugs at Miles like he’s either ignoring Rick as directed or wasn’t particularly concerned to begin with, and the six of them all gather up their trash and head for the exit, Casey still carrying the remains of his milkshake. Miles is pleased to see that the rest of the milkshake doesn’t get tossed into the trash with everything else; even half a milkshake’s worth of progress is still progress.

They pile into the Brown’s Flowers van, the only vehicle they have that’s big enough to fit all of them, and Miles drives them over to the theatre. On the way, he quickly formulates a plan that’ll keep Casey from realizing what movie they’re seeing, but won’t require him to buy Casey’s ticket and push this thing into the actual, possible realm of triple date. Which it’s not, at all.

When Miles parks, he announces, “Now everybody who isn’t Taylor give me your ticket money, and I’ll stand in line for the tickets while the rest of you buy popcorn or something.”

“Except not me, because I’m having candy,” Casey retorts. “Which you’re buying.”

“Except for Cherry, who is having candy that I’m buying,” Miles agrees. “Now shoo. Us grown-ups have tickets to purchase, since I’m the only one old enough to buy tickets to grown-up movies.”

Casey, Rick and Alicia, and Taylor and Maci head towards the refreshments counter while Miles buys six tickets to _Paranormal Activity 4_ , which he is definitely sure Casey won’t be thrilled about watching, despite his love of low-budget monster movies. Once he has the tickets, he joins the rest of them at the refreshments counter, where he buys himself some popcorn, Casey a bag of Skittles, and then pops for the both of them, since he may as well provide a secondary bribe in the event that Casey’s pissed about the movie.

It’s not until they’re settled in their seats, with Taylor and Maci on one end, Miles and Casey at the other, and Rick and Alicia a little _too_ cozy in the middle, that Casey asks, “So, what are we seeing?”

“Oh, it’ll be fine,” Miles assures him.

“Um. But what are we _seeing_?”

“I don’t think it’s as scary as the first three,” Miles says, patting Casey on the arm. 

“The first three what?” Casey asks, but Miles turns his attention to his popcorn and doesn’t answer, so Casey leans across him and asks Rick, “What are we seeing, Rick?”

“That _Paranormal Activity_ movie,” Rick answers. “It’s supposed to be real scary!”

Casey is still leaning across Miles, so he really only has to swivel his head up to glare at him. “Miles, are we seeing a horror movie?”

“Well, now, Cherry,” Miles says, “that’s really a matter of opinion. Some people’s horror is other people’s, uh… Humor!”

“I don’t think it’s gonna be real funny, Brown,” Rick says, placidly munching away on his popcorn like he’s chewing cud in the middle of a lovely pastoral scene somewhere. “I think this one’s pretty gory.”

“It’s not Freddy!” Alicia says from the other side of Rick. “So you should be fine, Casey.”

Casey sits back in his seat and looks at Miles with a pitiful face. “I’m going to pee. This is going to scare me so much that I pee, and if that happens, I am never, ever, ever going to forgive you, Miles.”

“It’ll be fine,” Miles insists. “Just close your eyes during the scary parts.”

“I think all the parts are the scary parts!” Rick pipes up.

“Foots, I swear to god, if you don’t shut that giant fool yap of yours—”

“What?” Rick asks, bewildered. “Alicia, how come Brown’s getting so pissed at me tonight?”

“Don’t worry about it, Daniel,” Alicia says, leaning forward to glare at Miles. “We’ll just ignore him for a bit.”

“Is Daniel worried about the scary parts?” Miles can hear Maci asking Alicia. “Daniel, you can just hold Alicia’s hand when it gets scary.”

“I’m not scared!” Rick says, and he sounds even more confused. “It’s Casey that’s scared, not me!”

“Oh, well then, he can hold Miles’ hand!” Maci says. “Don’t worry, Casey! I’m sure Miles’ll hold your hand for the scary parts.”

“Nobody’s holding anybody’s hand during any of the parts!” Miles announces, because this really is starting to sound more and more like everyone really thinks it’s a triple date, except for the actual two of them that supposedly comprise this third couple. “Nobody! Hands to yourselves, all of you!”

Taylor looks at him strangely. “Dude. Our hands aren’t really any of your business. Keep your own hands wherever you want them, but this isn’t kindergarten.”

“Well, it’s a little bit kindergarten, since none of the rest of you were old enough to buy your own tickets to this movie,” Miles grumbles, but everybody else ignores him, since the previews are starting. 

Casey shrieks, screams, or yelps through most of the movie, but he doesn’t pee or anything, which is good. There’s no hand–holding, at least not down at Miles’ end of the row, but by halfway through the movie, Casey’s scrunching up his eyes and pressing his face into Miles’ shoulder any time something scary happens, which is pretty much the entire time.

It’s not precisely a triple date, not really, but it also feels like it’s not _not_ one, either. The moral of the story is probably that Rick should never be allowed to be involved in the making of plans for group activities. Also, never to make food–related bets with a guy on T.


	6. November 2012

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing goes as planned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warning: Potentially triggering language relating to character(s) mental state.**
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> This story is immediately followed by [Rambling Wrecks: November 27, 2012](http://archiveofourown.org/works/438307). You may want to (re)read it before reading Rambling Wrecks: December 2012. 
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> Downloadable playlist for Rambling Wrecks Volume II is [available here](http://storyof3boys.livejournal.com/98531.html).

**Tuesday, November 6th, 2012: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Almost every step Dave takes on Tuesday is on top of chalked–out messages reminding him to vote. Back in July, he'd tried to decide if he wanted to vote absentee ballot in Ohio or change his registration to Georgia. After he'd realized he probably wasn't going to be back in Ohio on an election day for a very long time, though, it had been a pretty easy decision. 

Dave goes to vote, in fact, as soon as practice is over, which makes him a little late to class, but his professor doesn't seem to really notice or care. 

The weather is too warm for Election Day, if you ask Dave's opinion. A few people in class and then at practice ask Dave where he's going to watch the election results, and he just shrugs. 

"Wasn't really planning to," he says to Ty under his breath. "I mean, I care, but not that much. And it's not like they're giving us less work this week or anything."

Ty laughs. "Yeah, I figured we'd turn on the news around eleven and see what they said then, right?" He stops and looks at Dave appraisingly. "I figure I know how you voted, but I don't know if Coop and Danny agree with us."

"Oh well." Dave shrugs. "They'll just have to deal with it. If they even voted."

"Good point," Ty nods. 

Dave's sort of glad, actually, that there's not more discussion of the elections, at least not during practice, and they get through dinner without any discussion, either. Dave's voting isn't exactly a surprise; his family is the prototypical Midwestern union family, and Dave suspects he has relatives that would roll over in their graves if Dave voted anything but Democrat, anyway. 

Instead of watching election results after dinner, though, Dave does homework, Coop disappears somewhere, and Ty and Danny work on some homework, too. Dave does find himself tapping his pencil and looking at the time more than he might otherwise; he doesn't care about watching the results, but he really would like to _know_ the results already. 

Dave manages to lose track of time, fighting with computer science for nearly an hour before giving up and making sure the rest of his assignments for the week are complete or near complete. He's finishing a paper for English when Ty knocks on the door. 

"Come on, Special K! It's almost eleven and supposedly they're getting ready to call it!"

Dave follows Ty out in the main area and notes the time—11:14 pm—and then starts to listen to the talking head. 

"And Obama's taken the swing states of Pennsylvania and Michigan already," he says. "Plus North Carolina. Virginia went to Romney, and we're waiting on results in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Florida. Ohio or Florida could put Obama over the top."

"That's right, and— wait. We have Wisconsin. Wisconsin's going to go for Obama. Obama has 262 of the electoral votes. A reminder, he needs just 270 to win."

"And we're also getting Ohio. It's official, we here at ABC are prepared to call Ohio, and this election, for Barack Obama. Barack Obama has been re-elected to the office of the presidency."

Dave lets out a breath that he didn't know he was holding, and Ty springs out of his seat, punching the air. "That's right! That's how we get it done!"

Danny pops his head out of his bedroom. "What? What's happened?"

"Ohio went blue," Dave answers, grinning in spite of himself. "Obama won."

"Ohh, right, the election." Danny nods. "I don't remember if I ever sent my absentee ballot back or not." He shrugs. "Guess my one vote probably wouldn't've made a difference in any direction, anyway." With that, he goes back into his room, and Ty laughs. 

"Nah, not in Tennessee, not in either direction." Ty shakes his head. "You care about all the Senate races?"

Dave shakes his head. "Nah. Gonna go try my hand at CS for another few minutes." And while that is his intent, after fifteen more minutes he gives up and sets his alarm. He'll celebrate the election by going to bed a little earlier than usual. 

 

**Sunday, November 11th, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

Casey is still picking at his breakfast when Miles arrives to pick him up for the flower shop. He’s trying, he really is, but Shannon’s fixation with huge breakfasts means that the breakfast–eating process takes a long time, and getting up before he’s done is not an option.

Monty lets Miles in, and Miles saunters into the kitchen and sits down next to Casey. After a cursory look around, Miles leans over and snatches the last slice of bacon from Casey’s plate with a wink at Casey.

“Shh,” Miles says, as he’s taking a bite of the bacon. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

Casey laughs and finishes his eggs, which means he’s done and they can leave after he washes his plate. They walk to the front door and are both putting on their shoes when Casey looks over at Miles, really looks at him and what he’s wearing, and suddenly startles. The cold weather set in late this year, and they’ve only just started having to put coats on over their long sleeves, and that means this is the first time Miles has had on his letterman jacket this season.

It hits Casey harder than it probably has a right to. Sure, the whole football team wears them, most of the varsity athletes have them, and even Casey, as part of the varsity swim team, could have one if he wanted it, but all Casey sees when he looks at a McKinley letterman jacket is David.

“You okay, Cherry?” Miles asks him, and Casey blinks hard, shaking his head slightly to clear it.

“Yes. Yes, I’m okay,” Casey says. “My brain did a thing.”

“Yeah, that happens sometimes,” Miles says mildly. “Ready to go?”

Casey nods and they drive to the flower shop, Casey staring out the passenger window at the grey morning. When Miles moves his arm or leans forward, Casey catches a flash of red from the corner of his eye, and he thinks about all those times David drove him around last winter wearing his letterman jacket, how he’d make a point of wearing it when he picked Casey up at his house. It feels like such a long time ago, and Casey realizes with surprise that it’s been a year since then. 

At the flower shop, they wave hello to Ms. Betty and walk into the back room. Like he usually does, Miles holds his arms out, like he’s presenting the table full of flowers for Casey’s approval, and announces the day’s big project.

“Today, Cherry, we are preparing arrangements for Veterans Day,” Miles declares. “That’s why we have red, white, and blue flowers here. And the yellow ones are just to mix it up a little bit, but don’t worry about that part.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Casey says. “I don’t ever worry about any of the parts, Miles.”

“Of course not,” Miles agrees. “’Cause your job is to remember what the flowers are, and you’re good at that. Now, let’s get started on this. I’m feeling patriotic, Cherry. Are you feeling patriotic.”

“Um. Sure?”

“That’s the spirit! Now, you hand me a dozen white carnations and we’ll get started.”

Miles talks and Casey makes polite noises—which is all Miles needs, really—as they work, and they both end up at the middle of the table, Casey holding flowers in place on a wreath while Miles wires them in. Once they’re attached to the wreath, Miles bumps his shoulder against Casey’s and grins, and Casey smiles back at him, and then hands him a bunch of red cosmos and watches Miles weave them into the wreath. It’s a little warmer than usual in the back of the shop, and Casey lets his thoughts drift.

“Hey, Cherry?” Miles says, cutting through Casey’s flower–induced mental haze. “I’m starting to feel like I’m just another pretty face in a jacket.”

“Hmm?” Casey asks, then realizes he’s resting his hand on Miles’ arm and is absently stroking the leather sleeve of Miles’ letterman jacket over and over with his thumb. He drops his hand quickly. “Oh! Sorry, Miles.”

“Nah, it’s okay,” Miles says, shrugging. “Just, somebody touches me like that, usually means we’re about to go someplace nice and alone.”

Casey’s face gets hot and he twists a strand of his hair. “I kind of spaced out, sorry.”

“We could, though. Go someplace,” Miles offers casually. “If you wanted to sometime.”

That makes Casey laugh and roll his eyes at Miles. “ _Miles_ ,” he says. “I can’t be one of your new friends, because I’m already your friend.”

Miles’ laugh is a little forced at first, but then it warms up as he shakes his head. “Yeah, that’s true. You’re already my friend, even if you just love me for my jacket and not for my good looks and winning personality.”

“Oh, Miles. You know you’re the best,” Casey says, bumping Miles gently with his elbow.

“That’s right I am,” Miles says.

“And you have a very winning personality.”

“That’s true,” Miles agrees. “And you can just feel free to keep on telling me how amazing I am, Cherry, that’s really nice of you. You forgot to tell me how gorgeous I look.”

“Oh, shut up, Miles,” Casey laughs. “You’re terrible.”

“No, you just said it. I’m the _best_ ,” Miles says. “That’s definitely the truth.”

 

**Tuesday, November 13th, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Rick**

The PFLAG meeting is all about connecting with the great big Soups community in Ohio, and Casey goes through a long list of the groups around there, most of them pretty new. Casey talks for a long time about the PFLAG group at Troy, where Mr. Coach’s glee club is, and how they look at McKinley’s PFLAG group as a model for how they should PFLAG. 

“We’re good at PFLAGging,” Rick whispers to Alicia. “We PFLAG the best.”

Alicia giggles a little and nods, squeezing Rick’s hand. “We should make posters,” she whispers back.

“Nah, we should get Mrs. used–to–be–Pillsbury to make us some shirts,” Rick says. “They could say ‘Best at PFLAGging’.”

“Oooh, we should get shirts made,” Alicia agrees. “I’m going to mention it in a minute.”

“Foots and Alicia, you knock off that chit-chat,” Brown says, giving Alicia the stink-eye. “We’re having a meeting over here.”

“Daniel was just saying that we should have PFLAG T-shirts made, Miles,” Alicia says. “Isn’t that a good idea?”

“Shirts are good,” Casey says. “That’s a good idea, Rick.”

“Shoot, Casey, I’m full of good ideas,” Rick says, and everybody laughs. Rick grins, and adds, “It’s true, though.”

“I have a good idea,” Brown says. “You and my sister can listen to Cherry talking, and tell us all about T-shirts _after_ he’s done.”

Rick nods, because he totally understands what Brown means. He wouldn’t want somebody interrupting Alicia if she was trying to run a meeting. Brown looks a little happier, even if he does cross his arms like he’s proved some kind of point. Which he might have, and maybe Rick just missed it while he was thinking about the shirts or Alicia.

“Actually that ties in pretty well to what Casey was about to talk about, I think,” Taylor says, grinning at Rick. 

“Um. Well, sure, but I was going to talk about the party next,” Casey says. 

“Right! We could wear PFLAG shirts to the party,” Taylor says enthusiastically.

“Hmm. We _could_ , but probably I won’t,” Casey says. “I already have to wear matching shirts to swim meets. Oh, and matching black shirts at work. That’s a lot of matching. Probably it’s enough matching.”

“Well, those of us that want to can, anyway.” Taylor shrugs and looks over at Maci. “Right?”

“Right!” Maci agrees. “I bet all of the Cheerios would wear matching shirts.”

“Me and Alicia will talk to Mrs. used–to–be–Pillsbury after the meeting,” Rick says, looking over at Mrs. used–to–be–Pillsbury in the back of the room. 

“Pillsbury-Schuester, Rick,” Mrs. used–to–be–Pillsbury says. “We can talk about it after.”

“Great!” Rick says, and he settles back into his chair, putting his arm around Alicia.

“So T-shirts after,” Casey says. “But until then, we’ll talk about the party.”

“Only calling it a party was _my_ idea,” Brown says. “They wanted to call it a ‘social gathering’ or something like that.”

Casey laughs pretty hard about that, so Rick figures there must be more to that joke than the rest of them are getting. “No, we never did that at all,” Casey insists, but he keeps on giggling and Brown looks real pleased with himself. 

“You so did, Cherry. Then you wrote it all down in your book and color-coded it by the half-hour to make sure we gathered at the right pace.”

Casey giggles again. “It might be in the binder, that’s true, but it’s only in one color.”

“Let me guess,” Brown says. “Red?”

“Miles,” Taylor says, “now you’re the one derailing the meeting with flirting.”

Brown looks awfully surprised about that, even though Rick would’ve thought that Brown would know he was flirting, since he does it so much. Casey looks confused, too, but Casey looks confused about a lot of stuff that involves other people.

“Well, I’m not doing any such thing,” Brown protests, even though he’s doing exactly that such thing. 

Taylor looks skeptically at Brown, then turns back to Casey. “The party?”

“Right!” Casey says. His face is a little red and he sounds sort of flustered. “We were thinking the end of December. Not instead of doing an end–of–semester thing with just our group. In addition to.”

Everybody seems to think that’s a good idea, and they carry on talking about a party for all the PFLAG groups in the area. Rick doesn’t pay too much attention to the details, since he knows Alicia will make sure he gets to the right place at the right time. Instead he looks around the room at all the people there, all fifty-something of them, and thinks about how nice it is that their group has so many different kinds of people in it. It’s like a great big crockpot full of Soups.

Rick looks back at Casey, who’s still talking, and Brown, who’s watching Casey talk. Hopefully it won’t be too hard on Brown when Casey finally runs off with Karofsky. Nothing much phases Brown for that long, but it might be a little bit different in this situation. Either way, Brown ought to not be fussing at Rick for holding Alicia’s hand or talking to her during the meetings, not if he’s gonna be all up in Casey’s business like that. It’s a double-standard, and even though Rick’s mama says it’s important to have standards, it’s more important to pick one standard and go with it.

 

**Friday, November 16th, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Miles**

“So your swim class is having some kind of thing tomorrow, right?” Miles teases, just to see how quick he can get Casey to blow up.

Sure enough, Casey huffs and makes a frustrated noise before falling straight backwards onto Miles’ bed. “ _Miles!_ You know it’s swim _team_! I’ve told you five thousand times, and I know that you know!”

Miles flops onto his side on the bed next to Casey, propping his head up on his hand and grinning. “Yeah, I know. It’s just funny to get you riled up.”

“Miiiiles!”

“You get real squeaky when you’re mad, you know that, Cherry?”

“I don’t!” Casey insists, though he squeaks when he says it, and Miles laughs at him, which just makes Casey huff more and kick his feet a little, like he’s having a mini-hissy fit. “I _don’t_!”

“Mmhmm. Course you don’t. Not even a little bit squeaky,” Miles says, then adds, “Except when I do this,” and digs his thumb into Casey’s ribs to make him giggle and curl up, squealing “Miles!”

"Oh, Casey, honey. Would you like some juice?" Ma suddenly says from the doorway.

Miles doesn’t stop tickling Casey, so Casey has to gasp between giggles, “No thank you!”

"This one doesn't have any beets,” Ma says, walking into the room with a big glass of juice.

“Um,” Casey says, still giggling, even though Miles finally stops tickling him. “Thank you?”

"So you just drink this right up." Ma holds out the glass expectantly, so Miles lets Casey up. Casey takes the juice and puts on a big brave smile.

“Thanks, Miles’ Ma.”

Ma watches Casey until he takes a sip of the juice, then smiles at him, probably because he doesn’t shudder or put up a fuss. "You're welcome, sweetie,” she says, and then she walks back out of Miles’ room.

Casey takes another tentative sip of the juice, and Miles shakes his head. “You know,” he says, “you don’t really have to drink that if you don’t want to. She’s just gonna feed you later, anyway.”

“It’s okay,” Casey insists. “I don’t mind.”

“You did a good job not making a face, at least,” Miles agrees. “What’s in it this time?”

“Green things. It tastes green.”

“Oh, I just bet it does, Cherry,” Miles says. Without really thinking about it, he runs a finger along Casey’s forearm. Casey giggles and his nose wrinkles up all cute.

“I’m going to spill this juice all over your bed if you keep tickling me, Miles,” Casey says.

“That would be a tragedy,” Miles says. “Come on, we’ll go play some video games, and you can tell me some more how great I am.”

“You’re great, you’re the very very best Miles ever, but I’m still not letting you win at _Mario Kart_.”

“Then I’ll see if Foots is still here, and I’ll beat him at _Mario Kart_ while you tell me more about this swimming rehearsal you’ve got tomorrow.”

“ _Miiiiles!_ ”

 

**Tuesday, November 20th, 2012: Columbus, Ohio — Casey**

Shannon makes Casey drive out to Columbus hours before David’s flight arrives, because she doesn’t want him driving alone on US 33 in the dark, even if it’s a perfectly large and well-traveled highway. This means that he sits in the airport for hours, watching thousands and thousands of people walk by. He’s never been in an airport before, and even though he’d heard that Thanksgiving is the busiest travel holiday, he never quite equated that to a building full of people. With all those people, there is absolutely no way that Casey could locate David on his own, so he finds a bench near baggage claim, and that is where he sits. 

For some reason that Casey can’t quite recall now, he thought the airport would be exciting, or at least marginally interesting, so he didn’t even bring a book to read. He people–watches as long as he can stand it, his elbow propped on the back of the bench and his head against his hand, then he accidentally gets so bored that he dozes off.

“Case?”

“David?” Casey rubs his eyes and blinks, tilting his head to look up at David. “Are you here already?” 

“Already?” David repeats. “It’s almost midnight. Sorry about it being a little late.”

“Midnight? Really?” Casey blinks his eyes a few more times. “I think I fell asleep, maybe.”

“Really really.” David sounds amused. “And I think you definitely fell asleep.”

“Oh. Hmm.” Casey stretches a little. “I guess I can cross sleeping in an airport off my bucket list. If it were on there. If I had a bucket list. I don’t have one of those, though.” He looks up at David again and smiles. “Hi.”

David laughs. “I think Danny has one of those. Are we ready to head to Lima?”

“Do you have your suitcase? Did I sleep through the baggage claiming?”

“Nah, I just have my carryon and my backpack,” David says. “I wouldn’t mind stopping to get some coffee, though.”

“Oh, I can _always_ stop for coffee,” Casey assures him. He stands up and that’s when the reality of David actually being there finally hits him. David is _right there_ , and Casey’s suddenly unsure what he’s supposed to do, so he sort of shrugs his shoulders slightly and says, “Hey.”

“Hey yourself.” David shifts his backpack and starts walking out of the terminal. “So there was some excitement on my flight.”

“Oh no! Good excitement or bad excitement?” Casey asks. He has to walk a little faster than normal to keep up with David; he’d forgotten how much bigger David’s steps were than his.

“Funny to the rest of us, maybe not so much to the people involved?” David says, slowing as they reach the door. He holds it open for a trio of older women before he and Casey go through. “I guess these two different couples were going to, um. You know.” He flushes a little and waves his hand. “But they go back one at a time and they, uh. Each went in the wrong bathroom.”

“They were going to _what_?” Casey asks, feeling his face get hot. “Really actually going to… _you know_? On the plane? In the _bathroom_?”

“I heard one woman saying it was just supposed to ‘take the edge off’ before she had to ‘deal with’ his relatives or something,” David says, laughing. “But yeah, wrong bathrooms, and I think one guy actually started kissing the wrong woman, so then they started yelling. Flight attendants made them sit back down, but here was the bad part.” He pauses. “They were sitting in the same row, all four of them. Across the aisle from each other.”

“Oh no! That really is exciting. Or terrible! Or both!” Casey says. He slips his hand into David’s and gives a little squeeze while they’re walking. David squeezes back without saying a word. “Those poor people!”

“It was pretty exciting and funny for the rest of us. I’m not sure the one woman’s going to have to worry about dealing with his relatives another holiday after this one, though.” David shrugs. “Come to think of it, maybe not even this holiday. There’s still over twenty-four hours.”

“Ohmigod, that’s terrible!” Casey leads David in the direction of the Lemon. “That’s a lot more dramatic than my trip here. It was just, um. Me. Driving.”

“That’s definitely less dramatic,” David agrees. “Personally I’m hoping that that was the last time I witness that much drama on a plane.”

“Well, the Lemon doesn’t have a bathroom. Also, it’s pretty small, so I’m not sure it really has the space to accommodate… _you know_.” 

“Case, you’re a genius. Someone needs to create a car with a bathroom.” David grins. “It’d revolutionize car travel!”

“Those are called RVs and I don’t think I have the right license to drive those,” Casey says. He unlocks the driver’s side door of the Lemon and releases David’s hand after one more little squeeze. While David walks around to the passenger side, Casey leans across the car and unlocks his door. 

David puts his carryon and his backpack into the back, groaning a little when he takes the backpack off, and he sinks into the passenger seat with a sigh. Then he laughs again. “Nah, not an RV. No beds or kitchens or shit, just a bathroom.”

“I don’t think I want a bathroom in my car,” Casey says. “That would be so weird.” He shakes his head as he backs out of the parking space. “So, um. Coffee?”

“Yeah, that’d be great.” David rubs his eyes briefly. “Sorry, I was over in the studio until time to leave for the airport.”

“I’ll go through the Tim Horton’s and we’ll have coffee,” Casey says. “Or you can sleep if you want to. I promise I won’t crash the car.”

David grins. “Yeah, I figure you wouldn’t let anything hurt the car, but I’ll stay awake anyway.”

“That’s good. You can talk to me,” Casey says. “You should tell me more about, um. Oh! Your roommates and all the things they watch on the Internet!” He heads towards the Tim Horton’s, taking a deep breath and relaxing finally, after all the months of waiting. David still smells the same, that warm woodsy smell, and he sounds the same. He’s still _David_.

“That? That is still mostly Brittany, and whatever Brittany happens to recommend. I never should have introduced them to _Fondue for Two_.”

“Probably not,” Casey agrees. “I wish I’d never been introduced to it, anyway.”

“At least no one asked you to bring pudding cups home with you.”

“Um. That’s… true. Nobody asked me to bring pudding anywhere,” Casey says. “Can you fly with pudding?”

“I guess if it’s less than three ounces?” David guesses. “Or if I’d checked a suitcase, maybe. I also turned down the cash that Coop offered, so I could buy the pudding cups once I got here.”

“Why did Coop want you to have pudding?” Casey asks. “Is that a thing? Traveling with pudding? Is that something they do in Atlanta?”

“Uh.” David sounds almost chagrined. “For, uh, Lord Tubbington.”

“That cat is so terrifying,” Casey whispers. “He doesn’t need any more pudding.”

“They’re fond of him. And, uh, the new cat.” David frowns a little. “I’m not saying her name.”

“We won’t talk about that cat,” Casey says in agreement. “Or _Fondue for Two_. Not even a little.”

They go through the Tim Horton’s drive-through for coffee, and then they get back on US 33. David keeps telling stories about his roommates for a while, but then they fall into comfortable silence. They’re a half-hour out of Lima when Casey quietly says, “David?”

“Hmm?” David responds, his head tilting towards Casey.

“I missed you,” Casey says, like that somehow summarizes everything that has happened in the last five months, and really, it does.

David lets out a very small sigh. “Yeah,” he says, sounding about how Casey feels, both sad that they’ve missed each other and happy that they’re able to say it face to face. “I missed you, too.”

 

**Wednesday, November 21st, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Dave**

Dave wakes up early to have breakfast with Paul, then when Paul leaves for work, Dave heads back upstairs and tells himself he should try to study for a little while, at least. An hour, maybe. Or thirty minutes. Or he could just be proud of himself for opening a book at all. 

He hits the thirty minute mark and puts his backpack on the floor, pulling out a book, and a few moments later, the doorbell rings. Dave heads down the stairs and opens the door without looking outside first, because he’s pretty sure it’s Casey. 

“Hi! Hey!” Casey says. He’s rocking in place a bit, and Dave grins, swinging the door open more widely. 

“C’mon,” Dave nods towards the stairs. “I was trying to convince myself I liked this book Ty had me borrow.”

“But you don’t,” Casey says. “I can tell you really don’t.” He follows Dave up the stairs and into Dave’s room. 

“It’s okay,” Dave says. “It’s just, it’s a mystery, and, well.”

“Finding out who did it isn’t a good enough reason to keep reading,” Casey offers. “That’s what I think, anyway. I really don’t care who did it.”

“I just want the nightly news version,” Dave explains, sitting back down on the bed. “Tell me what happened and who they arrested. I don’t need to read about the four or five weeks in between.”

“You don’t want mysteries. You want crime drama.” Casey sits down on the bed next to Dave, his arm resting against Dave’s. 

Dave laughs. “Yeah, maybe so. I made myself study for thirty minutes, though.”

“Oh, that’s good. That’s good, right?”

“Who the hell knows?” Dave shrugs and grins wryly. “At least I can tell myself I made an effort even over the break. Can’t blame myself or something.”

“That’s good, then. Very responsible,” Casey says, making a serious face and nodding. 

“Yeah, that’s me. Mr. Responsible,” Dave cracks. “You think they’d give me a plaque or something?”

Casey laughs. “I could make that happen. There could be a plaque.”

“If you get the logo right, no one may ever realize it’s not official, you know.”

“Oh, I’ll get it right. It will be _so_ right,” Casey says. “I’ll have to put something really weird on it, though, so people get confused.”

“It’s not that hard to get some of my teammates confused,” Dave admits, feeling a little guilty. “Classmates, yeah, but. Let’s just say a few of the guys on the team make Danny look like Einstein.”

“Doesn’t Danny watch the cat channel all day?”

“Whenever he can. And he watches the daily ‘highlights reel’ to catch anything he might have missed.”

“Do you think he really likes the cat that much?” Casey asks. “Or do you think maybe he likes Brittany? Because that’s a lot of cat–watching.”

“Hard to say, really. I mean, Brittany’s not on the cam all the time. Sometimes it’s just the cat, for hours.” Dave shrugs. “But he does like it when she is.”

Casey shakes his head and slides his hand into Dave’s. “I guess it’s good he has a hobby?”

Dave laughs. “Yeah, maybe so. Other than watching the volleyball players.”

“Why would someone want to watch volleyball? Is it that exciting?”

“Not the game, the players,” Dave says. “I think ‘date a volleyball player’ is on his bucket list.”

“Um, then I guess. Good luck with that, Danny?” Casey says, with a small grimace. 

“I think he built it up in his mind before he ever got to Atlanta, to be honest with you.” Dave shrugs. “Sorry, I’m just going on about school.”

“No, it’s okay, it’s good,” Casey says. “I want to hear about it. We don’t really get that much time. For, um, talking. So if you want to talk about school, that’s good.”

Dave shrugs. “I don’t know, it seems like it’d be pretty boring. Feels pretty boring while I’m living it, anyway.”

“David, you could never be boring.”

Dave chuckles, because there’s no way that’s true. “You don’t have to try to make me feel better about it, Case. But thanks.”

Casey tips his head to the side and looks puzzled. “You’re welcome. It’s true, though. To me, anyway.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Dave shakes his head. “But really, tell me something interesting about Lima.” He stops and grins. “I know, right? But, uh. PFLAG? Still going good?”

“Taylor loses every single paper he ever takes home,” Casey says. “He had to start leaving them in a binder before the meeting’s over, even, because otherwise he’d lose them all, but he’s really good at leading the discussions. So, yes, it’s good. I think it’s really good.”

“One night at Pride Alliance they were talking about high school groups. They were surprised we had such a big group in a relatively small area.”

“Well, they never met Kurt Hummel.”

“Yeah, I never told the people at Pride Alliance that I knew ‘that guy from Ohio or someplace’,” Dave admits.

“I always feel like we’ll never do a good enough job,” Casey confesses. “I can’t do as good a job as he did. We do the best we can, but there’s two of us, and I still don’t think we do it like he did.”

“You know, I don’t think Kurt ever thought he was doing a good enough job, either,” Dave says softly, because he’s pretty sure it’s true. Kurt Hummel was nearly always hardest on himself.

“I don’t know how he did it. I don’t know how he stood it, David. I just feel so responsible for everybody, and if something happened…” Casey leans more heavily against Dave’s side. 

“Yeah,” Dave says, voice still soft. “Me either, Case.” He squeezes Casey’s hand. “But I think you’re doing good, from everything you’ve told me.”

“I hope so,” Casey says. “I really hope so.”

The two of them sit silently for a while, and Dave can’t bring himself to break the peaceful quiet. Finally, he squeezes Casey’s hand again. “At least we have a little break right now,” he says.

“I missed you,” Casey whispers. “I really missed you.”

“I should have packed you in a box,” Dave says, trying to sound like he’s joking. “You could have homeschooled the last two years of high school.”

“I would’ve gone. You could’ve just poked some airholes and put the box in the back of the truck,” Casey says. “I would’ve.”

“It’d be the Casey–cam.”

“It’d be weird if Danny watched me all day,” Casey says. He tips his head up, looking at Dave with wide eyes. 

“Probably Brittany would watch it, though,” Dave offers.

“Even weirder,” Casey says, and then he leans forward and kisses Dave. Dave relaxes into the kiss, kissing Casey back, and he slides his free hand along Casey’s back. Casey increases the pressure of the kiss, his lips parting slightly. Casey’s hand comes up to rest on Dave’s cheek and Dave leans into the touch. 

They pull apart ever so slightly for just a moment, and when Dave’s lips are on Casey’s again, he parts his as well. A moment later, he feels Casey’s tongue barely press against his lips, and he can feel himself open his mouth wider. Casey’s hand moves from Dave’s face to the back of Dave’s head, and Dave realizes that he’s dropped Casey’s hand, both of his arms around Casey. 

Dave lets his tongue meet Casey’s and as he moves his hands, two of his fingers brush against Casey’s skin. Casey whines into Dave’s mouth, and Dave doesn’t stop to think after that, he just slides both of his hands under Casey’s shirt, working it upward and still kissing Casey almost desperately. 

He pulls away so he can take off Casey’s shirt, and then they’re kissing again, Casey’s hand pressing against Dave’s shoulder blade. Dave opens his eyes enough to look at Casey and Casey’s eyes open then, like he somehow knew Dave was looking, and Dave sweeps his eyes over all of Casey. 

Dave closes his eyes again, losing himself in the kissing until he shifts, his hands running over Casey’s skin. He moves his mouth away from Casey’s and kisses down Casey’s neck, onto his shoulders, and while he kisses the freckled skin there, he can’t help murmuring, “You taste like cinnamon.”

Casey lets out a gasp, his body shuddering against Dave’s, and Dave moves back to Casey’s neck, kissing it lightly. Casey’s leg swings over Dave’s, and as his weight settles on Dave, Dave can feel how hard Casey is, pressed against Dave. 

Dave moves his mouth back to Casey’s, skipping the soft, hesitant kisses, and Casey puts both of his hands in Dave’s hair now, making noises into Dave’s mouth and moving against him slightly. Dave hears a car door slam suddenly, followed by laughter and the sound of his neighbors greeting relatives that they haven’t seen in months, and just like that, reality slams back into Dave. 

Dave isn’t back in Lima for good, or for months, or even for a week. He’s going to turn right around and get on a plane the night of Thanksgiving, and yeah, he’ll be back at Christmas, but that’s not that long, not when there’s another semester and then more football and more classes and he already feels like a horrible friend. 

He’s always the one who has to hang up first, the one who doesn’t have much time to talk, and fuck, he can’t do that to himself or to Casey, not some horrible half–assed long-distance relationship that leaves them eight hours apart most of the time. Casey deserves more than that, and Dave won’t be the one who makes Casey accept something sub-standard. 

He pulls back, almost choking back tears. “Oh, God, Case. I can’t— I can’t.” He can’t do this to Casey, to them, can’t be the horrible guy with no time for Casey.

Casey looks stunned, and Dave slowly lets go of Casey, leaning back a bit and resisting the urge to bury his face in his hands. There’s a slow litany in his head of ‘you’re such a fuck-up, Dave’, and he doesn’t know what to do, where to look, or what to say. Casey’s eyes get wider and wider, and he starts to shake, different from how he was just moments before. One hand comes up to cover Casey’s mouth, and Dave’s sure Casey’s about to cry, just like the tears Dave can feel forming behind his own eyes. 

“I’m so sorry,” Casey breathes, scrambling backward off the bed before he turns and runs out of the room. Dave can hear his footsteps pounding on the stairs and then the front door opens and closes. Dave slumps back against the bed, staring up at his ceiling. What has he done?

 

**Wednesday, November 21st, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

Casey’s shaking so hard he can barely keep the Lemon in the right lane, and he’s almost back to the house before he even realizes that part of the reason why is that it’s November and he isn’t wearing a shirt. He isn’t wearing a shirt, because his shirt is still at David’s house, where David took it off of him. David took Casey’s shirt off and kissed him down his neck and shoulder, told him he tasted like cinnamon, and then said, “I can’t.”

David can’t. He _can’t_. Can’t do that with Casey. Casey waited for five months for David to come back, missed him so much for those five months, and now he’s ruined everything for both of them by throwing himself at David, and David _can’t_. David doesn’t want him. Casey doesn’t know what he expected, not really; he knows what he wanted and what he hoped for, though, and that’s not what David wants, because David can’t. Why would he?

Casey knows he’s crying, maybe even sobbing, but it feels like it’s happening to someone else. Someone else is crying, someone else got pushed away, someone else isn’t wanted, because Casey has to finish driving home safely. He finally makes it back to the house, parks the Lemon, and walks slowly inside. The door slams too loudly behind him; Shannon doesn’t like door–slamming, but he can’t un-slam it now. 

“Casey?” Shannon calls from the kitchen. Casey doesn’t answer, because talking is currently so far outside the range of things he’s capable of doing. He keeps walking towards his bedroom. He can hear Shannon walk towards him, then stop. “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me,” she says, much more softly than usual.

He continues back to his bedroom, shutting the door behind him, and he sits on the edge of his bed. Casey realizes then that he’s still crying, that tears are still streaming down his face and that he’s having to gasp for breath in between sobs. He lets his body curl up, rolling into a small ball in the middle of the bed, and when he has that old, familiar feeling of disconnecting, of everything getting further away, he just goes with it, because this _hurts_ , as much as anything physical ever has.

Casey lies there in a ball on his bed for awhile, he’s not exactly sure how long, before it all starts to hurt all over again, and he’s desperate for anything to make himself feel better. Without even thinking about it, Casey pulls his phone from his pocket and calls Miles.

 

**Thursday, November 22nd, 2012: Lima, Ohio to Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Dave has to be on campus for workouts and practice on Friday morning, so his flight leaves Columbus at 8:10. He'll get into Atlanta right at midnight; since the chance of a traffic jam at midnight on Thanksgiving is small, even on the Connector, Dave is at least confident he should be in bed by 1 am. Maybe even earlier. 

That's one thing he gets a little right, at least, about the trip. He gives Paul a hug and goes through security with an hour to spare, and he sits and reads the damn mystery novel Ty foisted on him before he left Atlanta. 

He hasn't spoken to Casey since Casey fled his room the morning before, and no matter how many times Dave tries to talk himself out of it, that's what it was – Casey fleeing. Dave thinks he could have explained more, maybe, talked to Casey about everything he was thinking, but Casey just left, and maybe Casey's right. Maybe they both need a little time. 

Dave'll be back in Ohio in just a few weeks, after all. He'll see Casey then, they'll have had time to each think or whatever, and Dave can just _explain_ things to Casey, then.

Maybe by then Dave will feel less like the biggest screw-up on the face of the planet. Probably not, because even if he manages to feel better about the day before, there's still plenty of academic stuff for him to fuck up. 

Casey's better off without him, at least for the next few weeks. 

**Sunday, November 25th, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Miles**

Miles should have called Karofsky on Wednesday night, after Casey called him up sounding pitiful, and Miles went over there and found him all half–dressed and curled up and crying on his bed. He couldn’t get a straight answer out of Casey about what happened, but Miles is no fool, at least not when it comes to Casey. There’s only one thing could make that boy fall to pieces like that, and that is one Dave Karofsky.

He dials Karofsky’s number with no small measure of satisfaction, because Karofsky oughta know exactly what’s going on in Lima since his little holiday trip. If Casey’s not crying, he’s spaced–out and silent, and neither one of those sits right with Miles. The phone rings enough times that Miles thinks he’s about to be kicked into voice mail, before Karofsky finally answers.

“Hello?”

“The fuck’d you do to him, Shep?” Miles demands.

“The fuck’s it any of your business?” Karofsky snaps back.

“Since I’m the one he’s been crying on for the last four days,” Miles fires right back at him. “What’d you do to him?”

“Still none of your fucking business, even if I _did_ ‘do something’,” Dave says.

“Fine. It’s none of my fucking business. And you know what? I don’t give a shit what you did, Shep. You need to fucking fix it.”

“Uh-huh. I’ll get right on that, putting Miles Brown in charge of my life.”

Miles exhales and resists the urge to put his fist through a wall. “This isn’t about me, you dick,” Miles says, instead of punching something. “It’s about Cherry and how you need to fix whatever the hell it is happened between the two of you, because believe it or not, I don’t like seeing him unhappy any more than you do. So you fix it, Shep. You figure out how to fix it and you fix it.”

“Yeah, like hell it’s not about you. You’re getting some kind of sick rush out of this, probably. You aren’t Casey’s social secretary. Or his babysitter.” Karofsky snorts. “It’s always about you, Brown, with you.”

“Fuck you, Karofsky,” Miles snaps. “In fact, fuck you twice. You have no idea what it’s about with me. You don’t have a single goddamn clue. And no, I’m not his babysitter, but you sure as shit used to be. Who’s taking care of him now, Shep? It ain’t you. I’m telling you to fix it. You take care of that boy like you ought to, or I swear to god, Shep, I will.”

“I don’t take orders from self-important hedonists. Or you. Oh, wait, that’d be the same thing.”

“He’s in _love_ with you, you idiot!” Miles nearly shouts into the phone. “He’s stupid in love with you, and he’s hurting, and you’re all he fucking wants.”

Karofsky scoffs. “Sure, Miles. Sure.” He exhales heavily. “How about you go back to your senior year and have fun with that, okay? And I’ll handle the grown-up shit.” With that, Karofsky ends the call. 

“Well, shit,” Miles says to himself. “That didn’t go like I thought it would.”

**Tuesday, November 27th, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

Shannon's not the kind of person who gets flustered over nothing, so when Casey can hear her from his bedroom when she's out in the kitchen, getting louder and louder with whoever's on the phone, he knows it can't mean anything good. This month hasn't exactly been good in general, so one more bad thing wouldn't be a huge surprise, and he hopes at least it's not anything to do with Monty or work or anything too important. 

Casey moves quietly to open his door wider. He doesn’t want to eavesdrop, but he spent too many years needing to know exactly what a raised voice means, so he can respond the right way and minimize the fallout. It’s a ‘learned behavior’, Dr. Naser says, and he might unlearn it over time, or he might not; brains are unpredictable like that, apparently, not that Casey needed a psychiatrist to tell him that one. If he could make himself not think or feel certain things, or if he always guessed ahead of time how he or somebody else was going to respond to something, life would be a lot easier, but the fact is that he _can’t_ , so it’s not. 

When Casey hears Shannon, voice still raised, refer to the person on the phone as Ms. Hoffman—the social worker assigned to Casey—his heart starts pounding. No, definitely not anything good. After a few more minutes of discussion that Casey can’t make out, other than a couple of repetitions of his name and a statement about how Shannon doesn’t _feel_ reassured, she slams the phone down and says, “Shit.”

Casey hears the murmur of her voice and Monty’s in the kitchen, and he waits, trying to take those deep breaths that are supposed to help, but that he thinks are really more a distraction technique than anything else. Another few minutes pass before Shannon starts walking in the direction of Casey’s room, so he quickly sits down on his bed and picks up a book, pretending to read as she raps on his door and pushes it open. 

“Casey,” Shannon says with a sigh. “C’mere for a minute. We’ve got to tell you something.”

He manages to stay calm throughout the conversation, too calm maybe, because Shannon and Monty keep exchanging looks, and Monty keeps reassuring him that it’s understandable to be upset, and how he doesn’t have to repress his emotions for their sake or anything like that. Casey’s not repressing anything, though. He doesn’t have any sudden urge to cry or freak out; mostly he just wants to go to his room and lie down in the dark and go to sleep, which he can’t do because it’s only 4:30 in the afternoon. 

No, he doesn’t have any questions. No, he doesn’t want to talk about it. Yes, he’ll be sure to let them know if he _does_ have any questions or want to talk about it. He’ll just go back to his room and read his book for a while, if it’s all the same to them.

Maybe they’re afraid to argue, because neither Shannon nor Monty seem interested in trying to make him stay and keep talking, for once. Good thing, too, because Casey has nothing at all to say to either of them about it. Well, he might have a few things to say, but nothing either of them would want to hear. 

When Casey’s back in his room, he doesn’t actually pick up his book again. He just throws himself down on his bed and puts his pillow over his head and tries not to think. There’s probably some kind of reaction he’s supposed to be having, but he’s not sure what, and he doesn’t even have anybody he can ask about what the correct reaction is supposed to be. David would probably have some idea, but that’s not a viable option, so Casey decides he’ll call Miles instead – not for answers or anything, because he’s still _Miles_ and Miles isn’t the person to call for answers, so much as the person to call for distraction or entertainment or to stop feeling upset.

Miles answers on the second ring. “Hey, Cherry!”

“Hi, Miles. Hey.” Casey puts the pillow back over his head, phone still pressed to his ear. 

“What’s wrong?” Miles asks instantly, sounding more alert than when he answered the phone. “Coach isn’t giving you any trouble, right?”

“No. No, that’s fine. Everything’s fine with that,” Casey says. “It’s, um.” He exhales loudly, which is mostly muffled by the pillow. “Is it okay if I come over?”

“Yeah, of course. You want to stay for dinner? Ma’s cooking, so you’re safe to eat it.”

“If you’re sure that’s alright with your Ma?”

“Duh, Cherry. She’s always asking me why you don’t eat dinner here more often.”

“I have to let Aunt Shannon know, but as long as you’re sure,” Casey says. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.” 

“Don’t let Lima PD give you a speeding ticket on the way here. It happens a lot when people are coming to the Browns’.”

“That’s me, Miles. Chronic speeder,” Casey says, then ends the call. He smooshes the pillow onto his face until he needs to take a breath, then he stands up, shoves his phone in his pocket, and walks back into the living room, where Shannon and Monty are still sitting. They look at him with a mix of concern and pity, and it’s really more than Casey can take at the moment. “I’m going to Miles’ house for dinner,” he announces. 

Shannon nods. “Let us know if it’ll be after nine before you get back.”

“It’ll be after nine,” Casey says. It’s possible he could come home earlier, but he’s far more likely to stay until he absolutely has to leave, because Miles is way better than sitting around the house trying to not think about all the reasons he now has to hate November. 

Shannon and Monty exchange a glance, but they both nod. “Okay,” Shannon says after a moment. “Drive safely.”

Casey does drive safely. He drives to the Speedway and buys two Code Red Mountain Dews, some Skittles, an Almond Joy for Miles, who is the only person Casey has ever met in his entire life who actually eats Almond Joy, and a handful of Atomic Fireballs from a display next to the lighters. He doesn’t even eat Atomic Fireballs; it’s like his hand just shot out of its own accord and Fireballs were what it came back with. When he gets back into the Lemon, he shoves the Fireballs into the glovebox and then drives the rest of the way to Miles’ – still safely.

He parks on the street in front of Miles’ house, pop and candy in hand, and goes up to knock on the door. When the door opens, Casey’s surprised to see Miles’ dad standing in the doorway, looking slightly disgruntled in that friendly sort of way that he has every single time Casey’s come over to the Brown house.

“Miles is in the kitchen,” Mr. Brown announces instead of any kind of actual greeting. 

“Thanks, Mr. Brown,” Casey says, and Mr. Brown steps out of the way so Casey can walk inside and towards the kitchen. Miles and his Ma are involved in an enthusiastic discussion about something. The first time Casey heard Miles and his Ma having a discussion, he’d been sure one or both of them was mad about something, but by now he’s figured out that full volume and lots of hand gestures is just how Miles, Alicia, and their Ma talk to each other. Not Mr. Brown, though. Mostly he just sighs a lot and shakes his head.

“Cherry!” Miles greets him as soon as he spots Casey. “We’ll talk more later, Ma?” he says to her, then turns towards Casey without waiting for an answer. “C’mon, let’s go upstairs.”

“Oh! Ok. Hi, Miles’ Ma, bye Miles’ Ma,” Casey says over his shoulder, as Miles puts an arm across his back and steers him out of the kitchen and up to Miles’ room. 

When they enter Miles’ room, Miles closes the room and sits down on his bed with a little frown. “What’s going on?”

“I brought candy,” Casey answers. “Here. See? I brought Almond Joy, even though that isn’t even real candy.”

Miles puts one hand over his chest. “I’m hurt, Cherry!” He takes the Almond Joy with the other hand, though, opening it quickly and taking a bite. “Now I really want to know what’s up.”

“I brought pop, too.” Casey hands a bottle of Mountain Dew to Miles. Miles accepts the bottle with a skeptical look, and raises his eyebrow, clearly waiting on something. Casey’s not ready to launch into it yet. He came over to Miles’ because he does want to tell _somebody_ , at least, but now that he’s there, he can’t quite make himself talk. Instead, he opens his bottle of pop and drinks it, and opens his Skittles and fishes out a few of the red ones, and eats them.

“C’mon, Cherry, tell me what’s got you sounding all…” Miles makes a gesture in the air that is evidently supposed to mean something, though it’s not immediately clear what. 

Casey sighs and sits down next to Miles. “So, um.” He twists a piece of his hair around his fingers and sighs again. “So, that lady who does my papers, the social work stuff. She, well, she called Aunt Shannon today.”

Miles groans. “Don’t tell me they’re making you move _again_.”

“No. No, it’s not that. I was _worried_ about that, but they promise I won’t have to. Aunt Shannon swears I won’t have to move, that they won’t ever make me go back there,” Casey says. He wonders if he sounds as frantic as he feels, because even though he didn’t panic outwardly when Shannon was assuring him, now that he’s saying it out loud… well, there would be good reason to panic if that were actually a risk.

“Back there?” Miles narrows his eyes. “What do you mean, back there?”

“They, um.” Casey breathes out loudly. “Let him out. My dad. They let him out of jail today.”

Miles swears. “ _Today_? And they just called up all friendly to let you know or something?” He shakes his head. “That’s not right.”

“They were supposed to call us last week, I guess. But, they didn’t, because of Thanksgiving, and, um. So then there was all this paperwork, and anyway.” Casey shrugs. “They called today. It had already happened. They let him out this morning, I guess.”

“That’s shit.” Miles exhales loudly. “That asshole doesn’t need to be out of jail. And.” He shakes his head. “He doesn’t know where you live now, does he?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t think that they’re allowed to tell him that. I don’t think he’d try to find me, anyway.” Casey pokes through the bag of Skittles for another red one, then chews it very slowly. “Why would he?’

Miles shrugs. “Dunno. Just wanted to be sure.”

“I mean, it’s not like…” 

“Coach freak out?” Miles asks after a few more seconds pass.

“Yelled and slammed the phone. She wasn’t happy at all,” Casey says. “Monty just said I can express my emotions if I need to, but I called you instead.”

“I think Alicia still has a watercolor set in the basement,” Miles says with a straight face. “You could paint your emotions.”

“Miles, you know I’m not good with colors. I will draw stick figures of my emotions, and then, um. Oh! Rip them, like Dr. Naser says helps.” Casey nods to himself a few times. “It doesn’t really help, though.”

“Nah, doesn’t seem like it would,” Miles agrees. “Did she tell you to burn ‘em, too?”

Casey shakes his head slightly. “No,” he says in a quiet voice. “She, um. Doesn’t ever tell me to burn things, Miles.”

“Personally, I’d go with a punching bag, though.” Miles looks momentarily thoughtful. “Isn’t that a shrink thing, too? Put pictures on a punching bag and punch the hell out of it?”

“I don’t know if that’s something she does. Or tells people to do. She doesn’t tell me that.”

Miles shrugs. “Guess maybe they’re not supposed to tell teenage boys to hit things.” He grins slightly. “Right?”

“She’s probably afraid if I started, I wouldn’t stop,” Casey agrees. “I’d be a danger to society. No! I’d be a menace.”

“Too bad your name isn’t Dennis,” Miles cracks. “Otherwise she’d probably tell you to become a menace.”

“I don’t really want to be a menace, though. I just want… I don’t know, Miles. I just want stuff to be some way other than how it is.”

“I think the state of Ohio oughta be ashamed, is what I think,” Miles says definitively. “Assholes, all of ‘em.”

“I could see him at the grocery store. Or Wal-Mart. I could walk out of a gas station and run right into him,” Casey says. 

Miles nods slowly. “Maybe he’ll run off to some other town. Some other part of the state, at least. I mean, he doesn’t have a job here anymore. Right?”

“I don’t know. I guess not, after nine months in jail, but maybe his old work’ll take him back.” Casey shrugs. “He might come in and try to buy coffee, even. Do you think I have to sell him coffee if he comes in and tries to buy it? I think Ms. Horatio might say it’s fine if I don’t.”

“I wouldn’t want to cross her if I were him!” Miles agrees. “She’d probably say it was fine for everyone there to refuse to sell him coffee, Cherry.”

“I hate this month,” Casey mutters. “I really hate it. It’s a stupid month and I hate it.”

“Three more days?” Miles offers. “Next year, we’ll just cancel November. Skip it altogether.”

“Let’s just skip to winter break so I can hibernate, then,” Casey says. “I’ll just sleep until spring. That might be better.”

“Sorry, Cherry, I don’t think you’re furry enough to hibernate,” Miles says wryly. 

“I’ll just have to try harder, then.”

“Bear Rogaine.”

“That potion from the Bugs Bunny cartoons,” Casey counters. “About the right color, even.”

Miles laughs. “Let’s mix the two!”

“Nothing could ever go wrong with that,” Casey says. “No, nothing at all.”

“Better living through chemistry,” Miles says with a negligent shrug.


	7. December 2012

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So many selfish reasons why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warnings: Recurrence of past harmful behaviors and psychological distress. Please read with caution if previous works within this series have been troubling. This chapter also makes a ratings leap up to NC-17; we're choosing not to raise the rating for the entire work because this chapter has atypical content for the work as a whole.**

**Sunday, December 2nd, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Miles**

“You can just hand me that thing of filler greens if you want to, Cherry,” Miles says. “I’ll stick some in here and we’ll call it done. I don’t know what the hell kind of wedding happens on a Monday, anyway.”

“A Monday wedding?” Casey offers. “Maybe it’s cheaper.”

“Yeah, and that explains why they’re skimping on the flowers, too,” Miles grumbles. “Why even bother if you’re just sticking a few dinky little roses into the middle of a bunch of leaves?”

Casey shrugs. “I’ve never had a wedding, so I don’t know.”

“Well, if you do, you make sure you don’t cut corners on the flowers, alright? That shit’s important.”

“I don’t think that’ll be an issue, Miles,” Casey says softly. “But I promise. Good flowers.”

“That’s right. I’ve taught you well,” Miles says. He sighs at the look on Casey’s face. “You feeling sad today?”

Casey shrugs again, a smaller movement this time. “Tomorrow’s David’s birthday.”

“Still haven’t really talked to him?” Miles asks. He touches his fingertips to the back of Casey’s hand, and Casey smiles at him, a little shaky but still a smile.

“He sent me an email, but it didn’t really say anything,” Casey says. “And I don’t know what to say to him, so… so I just don’t say anything, either.”

“You ready to tell me what happened?” Miles asks, but Casey shakes his head rapidly. “Alright. It’s alright, Cherry. If you ever need to talk about it, though, you know I’m here.”

“I know you are. You’re really great, Miles,” Casey tells him. He leans against Miles’ side and rests his head against Miles’ shoulder.

“Yeah, yeah, you keep saying that,” Miles says with a short laugh, putting his arm around Casey. “You know I’d do anything for you, right?”

Casey turns his face against Miles’ arm and sighs quietly. “I know. You’re really good to me.”

“Hey, now, I’m your friend, and I want you to be happy. I’d fix all of this for you if I could.” He hugs Casey a little tighter. “If I could figure out some other way to make it all better, I would.”

“I don’t think I believe in better anymore,” Casey says in a small, soft voice. “There’s bad, there’s okay for now, and the stuff in between is just how it is.”

“That’s a sad way to look at life, Cherry,” Miles tells him.

“It’s the best I can do right now. Maybe I can try harder to not be sad tomorrow, okay?” Casey offers.

“Hey, it’s like my Ma says, alright? None of this is permanent and every day we get another chance to do it better.” Miles runs his hand down Casey’s arm. “We’ll try again tomorrow, and maybe it won’t seem so bad.”

Casey relaxes against him and Miles can feel, more than hear, the little sigh that comes out of him. “Thanks, Miles. You really are the best.”

“Yeah, well, don’t go around telling everybody, or all of them are gonna want me,” Miles says. “And there’s only the one of me to go around.”

 

**Monday, December 3rd, 2012: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

“Hang on, hang on,” Ty says, pushing past Coop. “I’ll go in first.”

“You don’t get a prize for being first, Ty,” Coop snorts. 

“You’ll mess it up,” Ty shoots back, opening the door, and Dave shakes his head. 

“You two are ridiculous.”

“Nah, they just wanted to—” Danny starts to say.

“Shut your cake hole, Danny,” Coop interrupts. 

“Okay.” Ty clears his throat. “Attention, please. HAPPY BIRTHDAY SPECIAL K!” Ty yells out, in a voice to rival a cheerleader’s. 

“I don’t think they heard you over on West Campus,” Dave says dryly. 

“Christ, Ty, I didn’t know you were gonna try to make me deaf,” Coop says. He sticks his finger in his ear and wiggles it. “My ear’s buzzing now.”

“And we got a cake,” Danny says proudly. “Go look!” Danny prods Dave towards a box from Publix, and sure enough, there’s a large cake inside it. It says “Happy Birthday Special K!” in red icing, which is normal enough, Dave guesses, but he’s never seen a birthday cake with a grumpy unicorn on it before. 

“Well, uh. Thanks, guys,” Dave says, looking at the cake a second time.

“We knew that one was for you because of the unicorn, see,” Danny says. “And the rainbow.”

“’Cause it’s a big, pissed off gay unicorn,” Coop explains.

“It. Uh. Yeah, I guess it is,” Dave concedes, and luckily, some of the other freshmen football players start wandering in at that point, along with a few older members of the defensive line. 

“Hey, Rodriguez,” Coop says to one of the defensive linemen, then nods at another one. “Hey, Todd. How’s it going?”

“Fiiine,” Todd says, nodding back. 

Rodriguez snorts. “Yeah, ’cause he tuned out the meeting we had after practice. ‘Big D still needs to step it up in the fourth quarter’.”

“Now if y’all can just find this dude ‘Big D’, you’ll be set,” Ty jokes, cutting cake and handing out slices. 

“Maybe that’s why Todd was wandering around at the 40-yard line,” Coop says, shaking his head. “Looking for ‘Big D’ down there.”

“Why don’t they ever tell us to look for the ‘Big O’, is what I want to know,” Danny says, perfectly straight-faced. Dave stares at him for a moment, and then realizes Danny has no clue what he’s just said.

Ty does, though, because he immediately busts out laughing, shaking his head and gesturing at Danny inarticulately. 

“Danny, you are such a dumbass,” Coop says. “How do you make it through your day without forgetting how to breathe?”

“What? I’m just wondering?” Danny protests. 

Ty whacks Danny on the back of the head. “O. Orgasm. Dumbass.”

“Oh. Oh!” Danny turns bright red. “Nevermind.” He picks up a plate and shoves it at one of the guys wandering in. “Have some pissed off unicorn cake!”

“Uh, thanks bro.”

Ty goes to the door and shouts down the hallway. “Anyone else want some of Special K’s cake?”

“You’d think you’d give me a second slice before you solicit more eaters,” Dave grumbles. 

“Don’t worry, Special K,” Coop says, elbowing Danny. “Me and Danny saved you a special piece.”

Danny brightens. “Yeah, we did.” He leans across the counter and hands the plate to Coop. “Here, you give it to him.”

“Sure,” Coop agrees. “Here you go, Special K. Best slice of the cake.” He holds the plate out in both hands to display the piece. It’s the unicorn’s head and horn, in all its angry glory.

“Well, thanks,” Dave says with a snort, but he takes the piece anyway. “And here I thought you’d save the part that said I was special.”

“You don’t need a piece of cake to remind you of that,” Ty says, appearing beside Dave and slinging an arm around Dave’s shoulders. “You’ve got us.”

“Oh, yeah, I do,” Dave concedes. More of the team wanders in and out, until all of the cake is gone, and after another fifteen minutes or so, all that’s left is a bunch of empty paper plates, the television blaring with some show Danny loves. As soon as Ty gets engrossed in it, Dave slips down the hall to his room. Just because it’s his birthday doesn’t mean he can skip studying for a night, no matter how good that sounds. 

Dave sits down at his desk and reads one of his textbooks for about thirty minutes before he decides to pull out his phone and see if it can distract him. Instead it tells him that he has a voicemail, and he hits play automatically. 

“Um. Hi, David,” Casey’s voice says. “I, um. I just wanted to tell you happy birthday. I know you’re probably, you know. Busy. But happy birthday, David. That’s… that’s all, I guess. So, happy birthday, and, um. Bye.”

The message ends there, and Dave just stares at the phone for awhile. Casey sounds a little awkward, like he usually does when he's forced to leave a voicemail. Brown had tried to tell Dave that Casey was devastated, but that isn't what Dave hears in Casey's voice. Dave still can't really make sense of what happened on the day before Thanksgiving. He can hear himself saying 'I can't', and he can see Casey running from the room, but he's not sure what Casey thought or even, if he's honest, exactly what he thought Casey would think. After Casey left, Dave had sat there for a long time, until he realized that Casey had left his T-shirt behind, and Dave carefully folded it, tucking it into his suitcase afterward. 

Dave closes his eyes and sighs. There are so many reasons why it was probably best, in the long run, that Dave stopped. Maybe it's the most selfish one, but Dave can't help hearing it over and over. He doesn't really know why Casey ran, he doesn't know what thoughts were going through Casey's head, but if it doesn't mean as much to Casey as it does to Dave… well, that's all. Dave would like to think otherwise. He wants to think otherwise so very much. Dave doesn't believe himself, though; Dave doesn't believe Brown, either. He hasn't figured out yet why Brown would lie or exaggerate so much, but he also hasn't figured out why Brown called him at all, not really. 

Nothing's going well, birthday parties notwithstanding, and even hearing Casey's voice _hurts_. Dave can't bring himself to pick up the phone and return Casey's call. He doesn't want to remind himself of how he's not good enough, just not enough period. He's not enough for Casey, and he needs to stop pretending otherwise. 

 

**Saturday, December 8th, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

“Cherry, can you explain again why we agreed to host this thing?” Miles complains, wallowing around on his bed in a pile of posters and fliers. “This list is ridiculous. We don’t need all these donations. My Ma’ll make some cupcakes or something, or brownies. You like brownies.”

“I _do_ like brownies,” Casey agrees, sorting through more stacks of fliers on Miles’ floor. “I like them a _lot_ , and your Ma is great, and I’m sure her brownies are great, and I bet she’d donate _so_ much juice, but unless she can also cook cups and plates and napkins and things, we still need donations.”

“How come we’ve got to do all the work?” Miles asks. “I thought you and _Taylor_ were doing this thing. How’d it turn into me and you?”

“It turned into you and me because the glee club’s Sectionals are today, and if Taylor stayed here and helped, either you or I would have to go and sing, and that would just, it would be _bad_ , Miles,” Casey explains. “Well, it would be bad if I had to go sing, at least.”

“It’s just a hell of a way to spend a beautiful Saturday afternoon.”

“It’s 17 degrees out there. Also, you’re _really_ whiny.”

“Yeah, well some people find that attractive,” Miles says, smirking and rolling over onto his stomach. “I even make whiny look good.”

“Yes, Miles, you’re gorgeous. Whiny and gorgeous,” Casey says. “Happy? Can we separate out these fliers into piles now?”

“Do we seriously need to put some of every color in every stack? ’Cause that is so gay.”

“I think that’s the point, Miles. Um. PFLAG. It’s a PFLAG party.”

“Doesn’t mean we’ve got to dry-hump rainbows,” Miles sighs, idly flipping through one of the stacks and rearranging a few sheets into a different stack. Casey narrows his eyes and glares at Miles, but Miles just grins back with his perfect white smile.

Casey shakes his head. “You’re awful, you know that?”

“Yeah,” Miles grins and raises and lowers his eyebrows once, before his face gets more serious. “So, did you ever hear from Shep? He call you back?”

Casey frowns slightly and shakes his head again. “No. Um. We still haven’t really. Since Thanksgiving. Talked, I mean.”

Miles keeps shuffling around the stacks of papers, but Casey can almost _feel_ Miles looking at him. “Yeah, that’s too bad, that he’s so busy like that.”

“Yeah. Yes. It’s too bad. Do you, um, have the pink stack up there?” Casey glances up at the bed and sure enough, Miles is staring down at him.

“These?” Miles hands down a stack of pink paper.

“Those. Thanks, Miles.”

“I’m King of the Paper Stacks, man.”

“Definitely.”

“It’s cold in here, you know that?”

“You’re still very whiny, Miles. If you’re cold, put your jacket on.”

Miles pulls on his letterman jacket and nudges a stack of papers. Casey shakes his head and goes back to counting out an even number of pink sheets into the various stacks.

“This is boring as hell,” Miles says. “You wanna fuck?”

“What?” Casey looks up at Miles again, not sure exactly what he’s expecting. Miles is lying on his stomach on the bed, chin propped up on one hand, with an eyebrow cocked at Casey. It definitely looks and sounds like a serious invitation for sex, but then, everything about Miles is like an invitation for sex.

“I said, this is boring as hell, and do you wanna fuck?”

“Oh. Um. Wow,” Casey says, because what does somebody say to that? That’s not a question he’s ever been asked before, it’s not how he thought he’d be asked or by who, but David _can’t_. Nothing about any of this is how Casey hoped it would be, so why not Miles? Miles, at least, cares about him, and suddenly it doesn’t seem like a bad idea at all. “Sure?”

“Then you should get your ass up here, ’cause I’m not crawling down there on the floor. It’s cold,” Miles says, levering himself up onto his elbow and then all the way into sitting. He quirks that eyebrow at Casey again, and Casey just sort of stops thinking too hard about anything at that point.

Casey climbs up onto Miles’ bed and a few stacks of paper slide onto the floor. Casey doesn’t even look. “Hey,” he says, shyly. “Hi.”

“Hey, yourself,” Miles answers, and then he pulls Casey against him, his mouth pressing against Casey’s, but not hard like Casey expected. Soft, almost gentle, like he’s waiting to see what Casey does or if he’s really on board with this. Casey’s definitely on board with this, though, so he kisses Miles back, harder, flicks the tip of his tongue against Miles’ lip until he opens his mouth.

Kissing Miles is different from kissing David, but Casey can’t kiss David, he doesn’t want to think about that right now, so he focuses on the feel of Miles’ lips against his, the different way he moves, and then Casey remembers how David whispered to him that he tasted like cinnamon. He tugs Miles closer, so their bodies are pressed together and he’s almost straddling Miles’ lap while they kiss. Miles wraps his arms around Casey’s waist and pulls him the rest of the way into his lap.

Casey experimentally slides his body against Miles’, and Miles lets out a sharp exhalation of breath. Casey can feel Miles underneath him, hard beneath the double layer of denim between them. When Casey moves again, Miles thrusts upward against him, and all Casey can say is, “Oh, wow!”

“Yeah, wow!” Miles grins. “Except jeans kind of suck right now.”

“They _do_!” Casey grins back. “They totally suck!”

Without any further discussion about it, they’re both fumbling with their zippers, Casey rising up onto his knees to work his jeans down, Miles lying flat to slide his off his hips, the two of them getting caught in a tangle of limbs in their hurry to undress. Miles pulls Casey’s sweatshirt over his head before Casey even realizes what’s happening, and then he lies back with his hands behind his head, like he’s just _admiring_ Casey.

Casey’s not used to being looked at like that, that’s not how people ever look at him, and usually he wouldn’t want anyone to look at him that closely. Right now, he doesn’t mind too much. He knows he’s doing better, Miles keeps telling him how much better he looks, and the swimming has given him some muscle. Casey rarely stops to think about his body and how it looks, but the way Miles runs his hands down Casey’s chest makes him feel pretty good about it, at least in the moment.

“You still have a lot of clothes,” Casey says, and Miles rolls his eyes, sitting up enough to slide his jacket off and pull his T-shirt over his head.

“Better?” Miles asks him, raising that eyebrow again.

“Put the jacket back on,” Casey says, heat creeping into his cheeks, and Miles rolls his eyes again, mouthing “bossy”, but he does it. Casey shows his appreciation by sliding his hands up Miles’ stomach and around his sides, up under the jacket until he’s in Miles’ lap again, the jacket draped over both of them, and Casey’s fingers are digging into the smooth skin of Miles’ back, nothing between them but Miles’ silky black briefs and Casey’s boxer briefs.

Miles puts his hands on the small of Casey’s back, drags Casey’s hips forward, and Casey feels Miles’ cock pressing against his through their underwear, and it’s just _insanely_ hot, really. He’s sure he makes a little noise, a whimper or a gasp, but Miles just seems to take that as encouragement, because he runs his tongue around Casey’s earlobe and then starts working his mouth down Casey’s throat, and Casey starts moving, rocking his body against Miles.

“God,” Miles gasps. “Okay, fuck, hang on a second.” He grips Casey’s hip with one hand, holding him in place, while he reaches way over and rifles through his nightstand drawer. Casey wiggles, and then laughs when Miles bucks up against him involuntarily.

“That is _so_ cool,” Casey says, then he laughs at himself for saying it.

“Quit moving, Cherry,” Miles says, good-naturedly. “I can’t concentrate.” Casey doesn’t stop moving, even when Miles squeezes his hip a little tighter, but Miles finally rolls back towards Casey, condom package and small bottle of lube in hand, setting them on the bed next to him. “You’re obnoxious, you know that?”

“Probably,” Casey agrees, tilting his head to the side a little, then moving his hips forward again, pressing his body against Miles’.

Miles rolls his eyes. “How you wanna do this? You top, bottom, what?”

“Oh, um,” Casey says, like he hasn’t thought about that question—in a more general sense, or applied across a range of specific situations—a million times, then he just decides to go for it. “Hmm. Top, I think,” he says, trying to sound definitive.

“Cool,” Miles answers. “That works.”

“Oh, well, okay, that’s good,” Casey says. Miles lies back against his pillows and pulls Casey with him. Casey’s hands are so pale against Miles’ skin, and Casey runs his fingers over Miles’ flat stomach, the delineated muscles, and he has a weird thought that Miles, with his close-to-perfect body, is really a little on the thin side, and he should eat more. Casey shakes his head at himself and then leans over and nuzzles his face against Miles’s stomach. Miles puts his hand on Casey’s back and gently pulls him up into another kiss.

“Still too much clothes,” Miles says after he moves his mouth away from Casey’s.

“Yes, way too much,” Casey agrees, and he and Miles both start frantically pulling each other’s underwear off, legs going everywhere again, and it’s funny enough that they’re both laughing before they manage it. “I’m really _bad_ at this,” Casey observes.

“Nah, you’re gonna be great at this, we’re just both bad at the clothes part,” Miles counters, and like he’s trying to prove a point, he slides one hand around the curve of Casey’s ass and wraps the other around Casey’s cock, and Casey just says, “Oh!” and giggles.

Casey runs his hand down Miles’ stomach again and slides his fingertips down the length of Miles’ cock, surprised at the silkiness of the skin and also how much bigger it feels when it’s not trapped in underwear. He wraps his fingers around it experimentally and slides his hand up and down.

“Oh, goddamn,” Miles says, dropping his forehead onto Casey’s shoulder. “See? We’re great at this, the both of us.” Miles starts moving his own hand along Casey’s cock, and Casey _shivers_ , it feels so good.

“We are _great_ at this,” Casey agrees, arching his back a little and trying not to thrust into Miles’ hand too much.

“So, you want to?” Miles asks. The backs of his fingers brush against Casey’s stomach, and Casey shivers again. “It’s alright if you change your mind, Cherry. You know I like you no matter what.”

“I know. I want to,” Casey says, reaching for the bottle of lube, and Miles nods. Miles lies back against his pillows again, drawing one of his legs up, and Casey kneels in the V of Miles’ legs, fumbling with the bottle of lube and then flinching when the lid pops open and he pours way too much into his hand. “I’m making a mess.”

“Yeah, well, that’s sex. It’s messy,” Miles shrugs, with this grin on his face that Casey mentally labels _hungry_. “Just don’t get it all over my jacket.”

Casey transfers some of the excess lube to his other hand, and he wraps his fingers back around Miles’ cock. Miles moans and thrusts up into the circle of Casey’s hand, which makes Casey feel a little braver. He runs the back of his other hand down the inside of Miles’ thigh, until Miles’ leg falls more to the side, more open, and he presses one slick fingertip against Miles’ opening.

“Okay?” Casey asks, and instead of answering, Miles pushes his body against Casey’s finger. Casey takes the hint, and slides the tip inside, still stroking Miles’ cock with his other hand. After a breath, Casey pushes his finger slightly further in, then a little more, until his index finger is all the way inside Miles, and Miles is hot and tight around him.

“Fuck,” Miles breathes. “Oh, fuck, do more of that!”

Casey isn’t sure if Miles means more movement or more fingers or what, so he slides his finger out a little, then back in, then out again, and then on the third time in, adds a second finger. Miles moans, loudly, and arches his back, moving against Casey’s fingers. Casey tries to remember every diagram he’s seen, every conversation he’s ever had, and he changes the angle of his fingers a little, curling them, sliding them a little further out, a little further in, curling them up a little more.

“Oh, _goddamn_ , Cherry!” Miles says, and Casey can’t help himself, he asks, “Am I doing it right?”

“Yes, fuck, it’s right, _fuck_ ,” Miles says, so Casey does it again, curls his fingers, slides them in and out of Miles’ ass. He adds a third finger, feels Miles stretching around him, and keeps doing the little curling movement that makes Miles hiss and swear.

“Do you…" Casey begins.

“Fuck yeah, come on,” Miles says, reaching for the condom and unwrapping it for Casey, which Casey appreciates, since his hands are both slippery and also, they’re occupied. Casey slips his fingers out of Miles, who leans up and unrolls the condom down Casey’s cock. It feels kind of weird, actually, but Miles’ hand on him feels amazing, and then Miles rolls over onto his front, his knees underneath, and Casey forgets about the weirdness of the condom.

“Oh, wow,” he whispers, more to himself than anyone else. He pours a little more lube into his hand, spreads it on himself, and moves forward, so he’s right behind Miles. Casey takes a deep breath and pushes slightly forward.

“Oh, _wow_ ,” he repeats, because Miles is just so _tight_ around him, and he can’t help it, he pushes a little further in, faster than he means to.

“Slow it down a little, Cherry,” Miles says. “Don’t have to rush, alright?’

“Sorry!” Casey says. Miles moves back against Casey, and Casey moves forward little by little, until he can’t stand it and slides all the way in.

“This is _awesome_!” Casey breathes, sliding out a little and then back in. It takes him some time to find a rhythm, but after a few minutes he leans forward, presses his chest against the back of Miles’ varsity jacket, and reaches around Miles’ hip to wrap his hand around Miles. Casey moves his hips, just _fucking_ Miles likes it’s exactly what it is, the best damn thing Casey’s ever felt. He closes his eyes, shifts the angle of his hips and he moves forward, harder, and Miles lets out this incredible noise, somewhere between a moan and a cry, and Casey knows he’s _got this_.

Casey strokes Miles in time with his thrusts, feels this incredible sense of power, making Miles moan like that, making him move. Casey doesn’t have to think or hurt. He could do this forever, there is nothing as good as this. Miles’ cock is throbbing in Casey’s hand, Casey feels Miles’ shuddering under him, his muscles tightening around Casey, and then he comes all over Casey’s fingers. Casey leans his forehead against Miles’ back, presses his face against Miles’ jacket, eyes open, and he thrusts hard into Miles, coming and crying out quietly, his face buried in the soft wool.

When Casey catches his breath, he slides out carefully, flinging himself down on the bed next to Miles. Miles rolls over, handing Casey a discarded T-shirt, and Casey wipes his hands off and drops the condom and its wrapper in the trash can next to Miles’ bed. He smiles at Miles, and Miles grins back at him.

“That was _so_ awesome!” Casey says.

“Yeah it was,” Miles agrees. “We’re great together, see?”

“We _are_!” Casey says. “We’ve very good at that.”

Miles props himself up on his elbow and gives Casey an appraising look, raising his eyebrow at him. “But seriously, ‘put the jacket back on’?” Casey shrugs lazily and Miles shakes his head and laughs at him. “The stuff that goes on inside your head, I swear.”

Casey just shrugs again and says, “Well,” because there’s nothing much to say. They both know why Casey wanted the jacket on; they both know not to say it out loud and ruin whatever this was.

“Fair enough, Cherry,” Miles says. “You wanna finish the damn fliers now?”

“Sure. Yeah. Let’s do that! Um, as soon as I have pants.”

 

**Saturday, December 8th, 2012: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

“C’mon, Special K. I thought you said you were taking the day.”

Dave rolls his eyes. “I am. I am taking the day. Mostly. Some of us have actual classes to pass.”

“Oooh, burn, Coop!” Tyler laughs. “He told you!”

“Seriously, you aren't staying here studying all day.”

“It’s 11 am. I have plenty of day left. Which I'm going to go take advantage of in thirty minutes.”

"There’s life in him yet!"

"Shut up, Danny," Dave grumbles good-naturedly. "There's an AIAS thing this evening. And I have to go find a couple of white elephant gifts with Jessie and Kim, first."

"God, he's such a dork." Coop sighs. "Nothing to be done. Have fun being a dork, Special K."

"Yeah, thanks," Dave grins. "You three have fun with your scavenger hunt."

"We will!" Tyler assures him. "Later, Dave."

"Yeah, yeah. Later." Dave sighs a little with relief as the door closes. He wasn't exactly lying; he is heading out with Jessie and Kim before the party that night, but he's also studying with them plus Kyle and Zoe. As Jessie says, the crazy ARCH students have to stick together, even if it means supporting each other in studying most of the day on a Saturday. If their white elephant gifts come from the GT Bookstore, well, so will a lot of the other gifts, because they’re all ARCH majors.

Dave still isn't sure what possessed him to ignore all the warnings and do architecture instead of the M-train or something else less time-intensive. Ty’s economics major starts to look good some evenings, and sometimes Dave even reminds himself that it's not too late to switch majors, but then – what's the point in getting a degree he doesn't want? Plus it's not the architecture courses that are giving him fits.

He heads towards campus and meets up with the others in the Architecture building, which means six hours pass in studio time, studying, and vending machine runs before they all hurry over to the bookstore and buy some ridiculous ten-dollars-or-less gifts.

"So what's going to be the worst?" Kyle asks as they walk back across the Connector. "Personally, I'm afraid of Belinfante's exam."

"I thought that dude retired?"

"He can't keep his hands out of teaching. I can't believe I had the bad luck to get him, though."

"Ugh." Kim makes a face. "I just hope I pass comp. I hate English. It's one of the reasons I wanted to come here, hardly any English courses required!"

Dave laughs. "Yeah, the lack of required foreign language was a big draw for me."

"Laugh all you want, but I'm convinced 1060's exam is going to trip me up," Zoe announces. "It's supposed to be a weed out class, isn't it?"

"I dunno, man." Dave shakes his head. "I think the whole first semester is to weed us out."

"They aren't going to weed you out, Dave, they want you to win games so the alumni will shell out!"

"I'm not exactly toeing the line like a good little management major football player."

"You're doing fine!"

"In the classes I share with you!" Dave retorts, but he's grinning a little.

"C'mon, gabbies," Jessie interjects. "We get to go hob-nob with fifth and sixth years!"

 

**Saturday, December 8th, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

On the drive back home, with the neatly divvied-up stacks of fliers on the passenger seat and the afterglow faded and Miles’ smell all over him, the reality of what happened that afternoon finally hits and Casey almost has to pull the car over right there on the side of road. He doesn’t; instead he does one of those calming-down breathing exercises Dr. Naser showed him, the swimming feeling in his brain recedes a little, and he makes it to the gas station.

Casey has to sit in the car for a few good minutes of deep breathing before he’s ready to get out, though, and he tells himself he only had to stop because the gas needle is dipping down towards low. The Lemon’s a thirsty girl, that’s why he has to stop, not because his pulse is whooshing in his ears. Not because he was with Miles, _with_ Miles, and it felt good, incredibly good, but it _wasn’t David_ , and that means Casey has to rewrite his entire personal narrative as it relates to sex.

He forces himself to stand up, get out of the car, fill the tank, and not think about it. He directs himself through the necessary steps: Go into the gas station, pick up a bottle of pop to drink because Shannon and Monty don’t keep it in the house, put a pack of gum on the counter, grab one of those cylindrical lighters from next to the atomic fireballs and toss it in with the gum and the pop, don’t think about it too hard, don’t think about why. Casey _doesn’t_ think about it, he slides the lighter into his back pocket, unwraps a piece of gum, and he gets into the Lemon again, opening his pop and driving towards home. _Don’t think about it._

Casey parks the car outside the house and almost makes it to the door before he remembers the fliers and has to turn around to get them. He leaves his half-finished pop bottle on the passenger seat and goes back to the house with an arm full of colorful paper stacks. Miles was right about the paper; the rainbow colors are ridiculous. Casey doesn’t even know what he was thinking. About any of it, really.

He slips off his shoes and puts them in the rack, balancing the paper stack in his other arm. “I’m home,” he calls out.

“Hey, kid!” Shannon calls from the direction of the kitchen. “You’re back early.”

“Yeah, we were, um. We finished all of it.”

“Yeah? That’s good.” There’s the sound of a cabinet closing and then Shannon’s footsteps heading towards him. “Whoa, hey. Casey? You okay?”

“Miles was right about the papers,” Casey says, because that sounds like a good topic. Safe topic. “The rainbows, bad idea. I don’t, I’m not even sure what I was thinking. It was just, it was a _really_ bad choice.”

Shannon narrows her eyes a little, like she’s trying to figure him out, but then shakes her head. “Nah, I like ’em, Casey. Brown’s just not got a creative enough mind to appreciate them, between you and me.”

“He said that just because it’s PFLAG, doesn’t mean we have to, um. Dry-hump rainbows.”

Shannon snorts and then obviously tries to blank her face. “Remind me Monday morning that I need to make him run extra laps after practice for that comment.”

“No, he’s right. It’s okay. Don’t make him run,” Casey says. “I just, I _thought_ the rainbows would be really fun. I mean, they looked really fun. Now, I don’t know. I think it’s just too much. Not the right thing.”

“Well, they look good to me,” Shannon says, shrugging.

“Thanks, Aunt Shannon. I just thought, I don’t know what I thought, I guess.”

“You just thought it’d be more interesting!” Shannon suggests. “And I think you’re right. Dinner’ll be ready in about an hour, by the way.”

“Okay. I’m not very hungry, though. We ate lunch late at Miles’ house. His Ma says they eat like Europeans on the weekends,” Casey says, shrugging. “Miles says that they all ran late so much they just decided they’d stop trying to go for on time.”

“Then I guess you’ll have to heat up what’s left on your plate later,” Shannon says mildly.

Casey can’t even muster up the energy to roll his eyes, so he just nods a little. “I need to go put this stuff up, I guess. Gotta drop the request forms by the businesses tomorrow.”

“All right, kid. Good luck!”

“Thanks. It’s Lima, so, we’ll probably need it,” Casey says. He goes back to his room and shuts the door, sets the papers on his desk, and slips the lighter out of his back pocket and underneath the mattress. Just in case. He doesn’t think about it too much, because it’s just in case.

Oh, god, what is he gonna tell David? Is he supposed to tell David? Casey isn’t sure if there’s a protocol for this, because aren’t you supposed to tell your best friend this kind of stuff? And isn’t David—whatever else has happened—supposed to be his best friend? But it’s also _David_ , who pushed him away when he thought that maybe they were finally… but, they weren’t, so maybe David would want to know. Not making any decisions today is probably the best course of action, Casey decides, and he studiously concentrates on everything else, like school and swim team and the stupid party he’s already pretty tired of planning, until dinner.

Casey sets the table and fills water glasses. Monty’s still all hyped up from the Trojammers’ Sectionals win the week before, and even though Casey and Shannon were there and saw it, neither one of them interrupts. Shannon’s actually pretty great, weird fixation with food and scheduling aside, but Monty makes Casey feel, maybe for the first time ever, like that much enthusiasm isn’t such a bad thing.

“The tights were the best part,” Casey says, when Monty pauses for a breath. “I still think you should have had the antennas, though. Those were really funny.”

“I know, I know!” Monty says. “The kids didn’t like them, though, they said the balls on the top were too heavy and they _did_ fall off quite a bit while they danced, I’m afraid.”

“You shoulda used some of that spray foam instead of the craft-store balls, Monty.”

“Well, the budget’s still so tight, and the timeline, we just didn’t have time to change it,” Monty says. “Here, Casey. Have a potato. And Gail says anything from a spray can gives her a migraine. She even had a _note_ from her doctor!”

“I had a kid show up to tryouts this year with a note from his doctor that he couldn’t be expected to wear eyeblack.” Shannon shakes her head. “I swear, doctors’ll write anything if you pay them enough and find the right one.”

“Poetry gives me migraines,” Casey says. “We should see if I can get a note to sit out of English until we’re done with odes, at least. I don’t know why someone would write a poem to a vase. I mean, it’s just weird.” He pushes his food around on his plate a little, compacting it into a smaller space without looking straight down at it. Sometimes it works, if he keeps the conversation going enough, on the nights he doesn’t feel like eating as much as Shannon seems to think he needs to eat.

“Tough luck, kid.” Shannon looks over at him sharply. “You want to go ahead and put part of that back to heat up in a couple of hours?”

“Just let me work on it a little, geez,” Casey grumbles. “See, look? Eating.” He pointedly crams a forkful of chicken into his mouth.

“Attitude,” Shannon chides.

“Sorry, you’re right, I’m sorry,” Casey says. “Just, weird day. Long and weird.”

“What was weird?” Monty asks. “Oh, here, try this, the squash is really good. I put extra butter on it when Shannon wasn’t looking.” He winks at Casey and Shannon just takes another bite, not otherwise seeming to react. Casey eats a couple bites of the squash before answering, because it makes Monty happy and the squash _is_ nice and buttery.

“Just, um. Miles. He’s very… Miles.”

“I told you, I should make him run extra laps.”

“Very Miles, hmm?” Monty asks. “That seems like code for something, don’t you think, Shannon? Oh yes, that team, they were just very Miles, weren’t they?”

“It does,” Shannon agrees. “He’s like a new word on his own.”

“He’s like, well. Miles. Only Miles is like Miles,” Casey says. “He’s, um. He’s great. Fun. Just, you know.” Casey shrugs.

“He’s a great source of morale for the team,” Shannon agrees, “but he’s also my biggest problem at maintaining discipline.”

“Miles thinks he knows everything, but sometimes he’s wrong,” Casey says, simply.

Shannon laughs. “Yeah, that’s a good summary of him.”

Casey’s kind of had enough of both talking about Miles and eating dinner. “I guess I’m going to save the rest of this for later,” he says. “I really did eat lunch super late. It was past two. It involved ham.”

“All right,” Shannon concedes. “I’ll make sure to call you down later.”

“I’m going to just, I don’t know. Read or draw for a little while, maybe.”

“I still think the world needs a Trojammer comic book,” Monty says, and Casey rolls his eyes good-naturedly. Monty won’t let it go and Casey is _so_ not going draw it.

“And I still say it just doesn’t sound right, Uncle Monty,” Casey says. “You can’t call a superhero Trojammer.” Monty shrugs, but Casey still can’t make himself explain it any better than that.

Once Casey’s back in his room, he really does try to draw for a while, but he keeps catching himself doodling ‘David’ in stupid curly fancy letters like some kind of girl, so he systematically tears the sheet of paper into the tiniest bits of scrap possible, then sprinkles them into the trash. Dr. Naser says stuff like that’s supposed to help, but Casey’s never figured out how, exactly. It doesn’t make things any quieter in his head or make his heart stop pounding, and it doesn’t keep him from sticking his hand under his mattress to get the lighter.

It’s been almost nine months ago, back in February, since he’s done _that_. He’s wanted to, he’s even come close, but he hasn’t done it. All it took was thinking about David, how upset it would make him, and it would be enough to calm that urge. That was before everything started to slide out of his control. Before Thanksgiving, when Casey finally understood that David didn’t really want him, that he wasn’t ever going to love Casey the way Casey loves him. Before his dad was let out of jail and they didn’t even bother to let Casey know until it was already done. Casey isn’t somebody important. He isn’t somebody lovable. He’s an afterthought, an inconvenience, can’t control his heart or his life, and he feels like he’s drowning.

Casey rolls up his left sleeve and then clicks the lighter experimentally, watching the little flame pop up and flicker, keeping the button depressed until the metal piece in the center of the lighter glows red-hot. “Put it down, just put it down,” Casey whispers to himself, but it feels like a show for someone else’s benefit. When he presses the glowing end of the lighter to the inside of his elbow, something snaps into place, and everything is bright and clear for that one tiny moment.

The burn on Casey’s arm is bigger than ones from the cigarettes, all but the last one, but it’s clean, no ash or smoke. He feels so much lighter and further away from everything, like it happened to someone else, and it’s such a relief to be empty for a little while. After Casey hides the lighter under his mattress again, just in case, he sits on his bed and doesn’t think, doesn’t feel, just sits. When he hears the rapping on his door, he’s startled to see that the clock reads 8:30.

Shannon opens the door a crack, with that look on her face, the don’t-give-me-any-crap-kid look. “Casey, come on now.”

Eating the rest of his dinner really doesn’t sound that awful. It doesn’t sound like much of anything, really, so he just says, “Okay, thanks,” and goes and heats up his plate. Shannon makes a face, which could be surprised or suspicious, but she doesn’t say anything as he eats the rest of his dinner silently, mechanically. Casey washes up his plate. “I’m going to take a shower now,” he says, and his voices sounds like it’s coming from far, far away.

“You sure you’re alright, kid?” Shannon asks him.

Casey forces a smile onto his face. It’s surprisingly easy to smile. “I’m fine. Really. Long day and all those places to go tomorrow.”

 

**Sunday, December 9th, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Miles**

Miles picks Casey up at 9:15 on the dot, because Coach said Casey had to eat his breakfast before he could go anywhere and everybody knows that Casey with a plate in front of him is just a ridiculously long and drawn out process, so no need to arrive early. Kid can spend thirty minutes eating an Eggo, not that Coach is on board with the Eggos. It’s all weird egg-scrambles and breakfast meats with her.

Casey looks worn out, and as much as Miles wants to attribute it to his amazing sexual prowess, something about the tightness around Casey’s eyes makes Miles think it’s probably something else entirely. Miles momentarily considers calling up Karofsky again, lighting into him a second time, for all the good that’ll do. Or maybe Miles could just talk Casey back over to his house later and they’ll have a repeat of yesterday, which’ll cheer the both of them up.

“So, Walmart first? Or you wanna just go ahead and drive out to Celebrations?” Miles asks, once Casey’s settled into the car with a stack of fliers and his binder and all his paperwork.

“Whichever. Just, you know. Whatever one you think.”

“Mmhmm,” Miles says, as he’s pulling out of the Desmonds’ driveway. “So what’s wrong with you? You oughta feel good today. How come you don’t feel good?”

“No, I feel fine, Miles. It’s fine,” Casey says. “It’s just…"

Miles sighs. “The next words outta your mouth are gonna include ‘David’, aren’t they?”

“Do you think I should tell him?”

“Tell him what, Cherry? What’s there to tell?” Miles looks over at Casey, who shoots a dirty look back at him.

“Miles. You know what I mean,” Casey says.

“No, I know what you’re talking about,” Miles clarifies, waving a finger in Casey’s general direction. “No clue what you _mean_ by it.”

“I just feel like I should tell him.”

“ _Why_? That’s a dumb feeling. Ignore that feeling.”

“He’s my best friend, Miles. We’re supposed to talk to each other about important stuff,” Casey says, though he doesn’t really sound like he believes any of what he’s saying. “And, I just, I feel like I should tell him.”

“That’s a bad idea, Cherry. Really bad. Shep doesn’t wanna hear about this.”

“He probably doesn’t even _care_ ,” Casey mutters.

“Is that why you want to tell him? To see if he cares?” Miles asks.

“No. I don’t know. I just think I should.”

“Well, _I_ think it’s none of his concern what you’re doing with yourself if he’s not the one doing it with you, is all I’m saying,” Miles says, shaking his head. “Not gonna make either of you feel any better, talking about that stuff. Just let it breathe a little while and you’ll feel better about it.”

“I don’t feel bad about it,” Casey says. “I don’t.”

“Mmhmm.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Hell no, you didn’t. You did it very, very right,” Miles agrees. “You don’t owe anybody anything.”

“I don’t?” Casey asks. Miles just lets that question hang there, because what’s he got to say about it? Miles doesn’t know why Karofsky didn’t call Casey up and fix things like Miles told him he should, but the fact is that he didn’t. Karofsky had a chance and chose not to take it, and Casey shouldn’t be the one beating himself up over that, even though he’s obviously the one who is.

“Look, Casey, you should do whatever you think is right, but I don’t think telling Shep’s the way to go about it,” Miles says. “Quit feeling guilty about stuff you didn’t do wrong.”

“I don’t feel guilty.”

“Good. You shouldn’t. Now, Walmart? Or Celebrations? Make a decision.”

“Celebrations, I guess. They’re usually closed on Sundays but they said someone would be there until noon today to see us,” Casey says.

“There, see? That wasn’t that hard, was it?” Miles asks, keeping his tone as light as he can in hopes that Casey’ll joke back with him. No such luck, though. Casey just sits all clammed up and silent for the rest of the fifteen minute drive over to Delphos.

Miles flips the Sirius Radio to HipHop Nation and cranks it up, even though he honestly doesn’t like hip hop all that much; Casey hates it, and Miles wants to get a rise out of Casey, not that the kid gives him the satisfaction of even making one of his cute little scowls. Miles can’t help but feel a little… well, _hurt_ is too strong a word—it’s not like Miles had any kind of expectations, of course he didn’t—but _put out_ might be accurate enough. Yesterday was great, Casey seemed like he had fun, and that oughta perk a guy up, but today, Casey’s back to being just as miserable looking as he was right after Thanksgiving.

“What d’ya think? Who talks?” Miles asks, as they’re pulling up in front of Celebrations. “I mean, obviously it’ll be me if it’s a lady. The ladies love me. You, not so much.”

“You talk, it’s fine.”

“Damn, Cherry, you know I’m just messing with you, right? Knock off the sulk and I’ll buy you a Code Red Mountain Dew after,” Miles says. “Won’t even breathe a word of it to Coach.”

That, at least, gets a little smile out of Casey. “I like Code Red Mountain Dew.”

“See, I know this stuff, Cherry. I pay attention.”

Casey gives Miles a strange look, but then his face kind of softens a little. “I know you do, Miles. You’re great.”

“Yeah, I am!” Miles says, nodding. “Don’t you forget it. Also, I’m your ride home, so you feel free to keep saying nice stuff about me.”

“ _Miles._ ” Casey rolls his eyes, but at least he smiles and seems to relax a little bit. “Yes. Fine. You’re amazing. Prince of Lima. Best Miles ever. But,” he adds, pointing at the door to Celebrations, “store now.”

They climb out of the car, Casey’s arms full of rainbow papers, with some binder thing on top of them. He kind of hugs the stack to his chest like it’s his little paper baby, so Miles doesn’t offer to take any of it for him. Casey gets weird about stuff sometimes, no use trying to figure out what’s going on in his head most of the time. Miles catches the door for the both of them and even that seems to fluster Casey a little.

Behind the counter, a middle-age woman thumbs through one of those magazines that his Ma gets sometimes, the kind that’s all tips for women on how to make their asses smaller or increase their sex drives. Miles thinks maybe if they’d stop worrying so much about the size of their asses, maybe the sex drive thing wouldn’t be such an issue, but that’s probably not a conversation to have with the Celebrations lady.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” Miles says, plastering on his biggest, most charming smile. “Are you the manager?”

“Hmm. You the boys from the gay club?” she asks, glancing up from her magazine.

Beside Miles, Casey frowns slightly, but Miles just turns up the wattage on his smile, taking it from charming to panty-dropper. Like she can’t even help it, she smiles back at him. “Well, some people might call it that, ma’am, but really it’s an _inclusive_ club. Takes all kinds and it’s just about being supportive. Not all of us are gay,” Miles says, with a little eyebrow raise and the slighting hint of a wink. Casey either notices the wink or picks up on the tone, because he narrows his eyes at Miles, and _there’s_ that cute little scowl Miles was looking for earlier. He grins back at Casey.

“Well,” the Celebrations lady sighs. “The owner said I can give you some paper goods, cups and plates, though between you and me, I’m pretty sure it was just because she remembers that kerfuffle from back in the spring with the Lima school board. She said ‘just give them some paper goods and tell them we don’t have problem with the gays’, so, I guess pick out a color you want.”

“Cherry, you got thoughts on color?” Miles asks. “ _Not_ rainbow.”

Casey shrugs. “Red?”

“I’m shocked, I tell you. Just shocked.”

“Oh, shut up, Miles.”

The Celebrations lady starts setting stacks of red cups, plates, and napkins up on the counter with a little snicker. Casey pulls a form out of his binder, some kind of donation thing for tax write-offs or something, Miles can’t remember what exactly it was Casey called it. A something-something-with-some-numbers-in-it form. The Celebrations lady seems to know what it is, though, because she fills it out and then runs a copy off to hand back to Casey.

“Can we leave some of these here?” Casey asks, brandishing his armload of rainbow fliers.

“Hmm. I guess so, but I’m not sure the owner’ll keep them out or if she’ll throw them away,” the Celebrations lady says. “Maybe just a few.”

“Give her one of every color, Cherry. They oughta get the full effect after all that effort we put into making those stacks,” Miles says. Casey rolls his eyes again, and Miles laughs at him before turning back to the Celebrations lady. “Thanks for all your help today, ma’am.”

“Oh, it’s no trouble,” she says, waving her hand at him. “You seem like nice boys.”

“We are _very_ nice boys,” Miles agrees, grinning in Casey’s direction. “Especially Cherry here. He’s just so _nice_.”

“Shut up, Miles,” Casey mutters.

Once they’re back in Miles’ car, Miles pulls out his phone. “I’m gonna call Foots and tell him he’s gotta come with us to the Walmart. I think we need someone who looks like him with people who look like us.”

“How’s he look?”

“Like Walmart people.”

“Well, how do _we_ look?” Casey asks.

“Not like Walmart people,” Miles says. “We’re too pretty for Walmart, ’specially you.”

Casey snorts. “You are so weird, Miles.”

“Yup,” Miles says, and then Rick answers the phone. “Hey Foots, whatchoo doing today?”

“Well, me and Alicia were—”

“Uh uh, wrong answer, Foots. I’m picking you up in ten. You’re gonna be our Walmart face man.”

“Oh. Yeah, sure, I guess I can do that,” Rick says. “Take me home with you to see Alicia after, though?”

“Mmhmm, you can perv on my sister all you want _later_ … from an acceptable distance. Maybe from the next room. Maybe from the driveway.”

“Maybe from Elida,” Casey suggests.

“Yeah, you hear that, Foots? Casey says you can perv on her from Elida,” Miles says. “Get your shoes on. We’re like seven minutes out.”

 

**Thursday, December 13th, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

Casey sits cross-legged on his bed, staring at his phone with the irrational hope that it will just make the phone call all by itself, and also give him all the correct things to say while it’s at it. No such luck, though, so Casey scrolls to David’s number and only hesitates for a few moments longer before dialing.

Maybe it’ll just go to voicemail and Casey can put it off a little longer.

“’Lo?” David sounds distracted, like he’s not even paying attention to who’s calling.

“Hi, David,” Casey says. 

“Case! Hey. Sorry.” There’s the sound of papers moving in the background. “Just studying.”

“That’s right. Finals,” Casey says. He knows it’s finals time. That’s _why_ he’s calling, because they’ll both have a comfortable excuse to keep the conversation short. “You, um. Ready?”

“No,” David says flatly. “Not really. Still way behind the curve on some things.”

“Oh. Oh, I’m sorry, I can. I’ll just call you back next week or something. Or email you.”

“Nah, what’s up? I should probably take a break anyway.”

“Okay, yeah.” Casey takes a deep breath. “So, um. You’re doing okay? Haven’t really, you know. Talked to you much.” _Haven’t talked to you much since you kissed me. Since you kissed me all over my neck and my shoulder and told me I tasted like cinnamon,_ he thinks, but of course he doesn’t say any of that.

“Yeah. Season’s over, so that’s something, anyway.”

“Yeah, that’s something,” Casey says. “So, um. Something happened.”

“Something bad?” David sounds immediately more alert, like he’s searching for danger.

“Uh, no, not really. I mean, no, it’s not bad, just,” Casey says. “I dunno.”

“Okay…" David’s voice trails off.

“So, um. You know me and Miles are working on that party thing.”

“Yeah, pretty cool idea.” David pauses. “Did you have to cancel it?”

“No. Not that, the party thing’s fine, it’s. Um. So, me. And, um. Miles,” Casey says.

“You and Miles?” David repeats.

Casey sighs. This is… impossibly, stupidly hard and awful. “Yeah. Me. And Miles. Me and Miles.”

“You and Miles,” David repeats again. “Oh. Oh.” There’s a pause and a snort before David mutters. “That didn’t take long.”

Casey flinches. “Yeah, well. I didn’t want you to hear about it from Miles,” he says. “It’s not, like, a _thing_ or anything. I just didn’t want you to hear it from Miles.”

“Mmm. Yeah.” There’s another pause, some more sounds of papers moving, and then something beeping. “Yeah, listen, Case, I gotta get back to studying.”

“Yeah. Okay. Sorry, I didn’t mean to— I’ll just, um. See you at Christmas,” Casey says. “Good luck with your finals, David.”

“Yeah. Thanks. Bye, Case.”

“Bye, David,” Casey says, but David doesn’t hear him, because the connection’s already cut, and Casey picks up his stupid windup alarm clock from his nightstand and hurls it across the room with a loud yell of “FUCK!” Then he hurls his notepad and screams it again. “Fuck! FUCK!” He keeps screaming and throwing anything within his reach until he runs out of things, and then he considers throwing his phone, but decides that’s a bad plan.

Instead, he scrolls to another number. “Hey, Miles? Come over.”

“Oh? You miss me, Cherry?”

“ _Miles_.”

“You don’t sound good. Did you talk to Shep?”

“Shut up, Miles.”

“I’ll wear the jacket.”

“Just. Shut up, Miles. Come over.”

 

**Thursday, December 13th, 2012: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Dave stares at his phone for a long time after he hangs up. He thinks about punching something, and he thinks about screaming. Instead he takes long, deep breaths. He thinks about Casey’s T-shirt, the one that Casey left at his house at Thanksgiving; he thinks about how it sat at the bottom of the drawer, next to ‘Loved’ for a few days before Dave actually put Casey’s T-shirt inside his own. He thinks about it all and feels like a damn fool, and he takes another deep breath before getting up and heading out of his room into the living space.

“Hey, man, I thought you were studying all night.”

Dave looks over at Ty blankly. “Oh. Yeah. I was.” He shrugs. “Got a phone call. Going for a run.”

“Uh-huh.” Ty picks up the remote and shuts off the television, standing up. “You’ve voluntarily gone for a run three times all semester, Special K. And this makes twice since Thanksgiving.”

“So?” Dave edges towards the door. “So what if I want to run?”

“No big.” Ty shrugs his agreement. “Wait up, okay? I could use a run myself.”

Dave snorts. “Stressed over your fake calculus exam?”

“Hey! It’s real calculus!”

“Sure it is.” It’s the same argument they’ve been having all semester, and it’s a little reassuring, though not much.

It doesn’t take Ty long to change, and he claps Dave on the shoulder when he returns. “All right, let’s go. We can stop and get dinner at Rocky Mountain Pizza or something.”

“Yeah, okay,” Dave agrees, and the pair jog through the streets of campus. Dave can’t believe he’s running in short sleeves, not in December, but that’s just one of the many things he’s had to adjust to when it comes to college.

It’s not until they’re sitting down at Rocky Mountain, the noise of some lucky people celebrating the end of their own finals cloaking his words, that Dave begins to talk.

“It’s Casey.”

Ty snorts. “Big surprise there, Special K. What happened?”

Dave scowls and takes a bite of his sweet potato fries. “What didn’t?” He shakes his head. “Case… Case hasn’t exactly had the best year, you know?”

“Oh?”

“Back in February.” Dave can’t believe he’s gone this long without telling anyone. Sure, he’s raised his hand at Pride Alliance meetings: yes, he knows someone who tried to commit suicide. But he’s never actually talked about it with anyone. Everyone in Lima pretty much knew.

“Casey’s dad found out he was gay. He beat him up really badly, and the next day, Casey swallowed some pills and drowned them with whiskey.” Ty gasps but doesn’t say anything. “Case called me, for whatever reason, and I called 911 and drove over. It was.” Dave exhales. “The worst day of my life. Casey moved in with Dad and me for awhile, before he went to live with Coach Beiste and her husband. Monty.” Dave snorts. “So. One of the guys on the team started calling me Sheepdog, and then just Shep, but. You get the idea.”

“You were his… bodyguard? Protector? Savior?” Ty tosses out.

“Yeah, all of that, plus best friend. And fuck, Ty, he turned 16 in March! I just turned 19.” Dave picks at his food. “I don’t know. I wasn’t going to put all that on the line, for starters. It’s not what he needed. I’m still not what he needs, or what he deserves. Even _if_ it’s real and not misplaced gratitude or whatever.”

“Makes sense.” Ty nods. “He’s still, what, a junior?”

“Yep.”

“Yeah, that’s a bad plan.” Ty winces. “Fuck. Yeah. So what’s the problem now? Why’s it worse?”

“Went home for Thanksgiving,” Dave starts. “I mean, yeah, we talk on the phone and all, but. You know, he hates pictures of himself, so one of the last ones I saw – well, it was a little unexpected.” Dave doesn’t know how to explain it, really, because he can’t explain it to himself that well.

“Your boy got hot on you. In addition to being adorable.” Ty nods. “Okay. I dig that.”

“Sure, we’ll go with that.” Dave sighs. “I… I shouldn’t have. Even if he actually felt something for me beyond friendship and gratitude and everything, he needs something better than me, you know?”

“Better than you?”

“I’m eight hours away, I spend most of my time on the field or in the studio, did I mention the age gap?” Dave sighs. “Case deserves someone who can really be there for him. Someone real, not someone long-distance. I can’t even promise that I’d talk to him on the phone every day.”

“Fair enough,” Ty concedes after a moment. “You love him enough to want him to have—”

“The best. Yeah.”

“So I’m guessing you kissed or something, then you were like, fuck, can’t do this, and things have been awkward.”

“That’s not the real problem.” Dave tries to muster a smile for the server but doesn’t manage it. “Brown called me up. Laid into me, said that Casey’s in love with me and I should fix it and whatever. Which I didn’t believe, not really, and even if Brown _was_ right…"

“You’re a week behind half your classes, we’re still practicing two hours a day, and finals are coming up. I get it, man, no need to explain it to me.”

“It’s not exactly a secret it’s been hard to adjust for me.”

“Yeah, I think you’re smarter than the rest of us, Special K, but you’re in harder classes.”

“And I’d never used most of these programs before in my life.” Dave shrugs. “Lima, Ohio doesn’t really prep you for a school like Tech.”

“I guess not.” Ty shrugs. “So, yeah, you were thinking… get through the rest of the damn semester with your major and your scholarship intact.”

“Yeah. Basically.”

“And he called you today.”

“Just to let me know he’s fucking Brown.”

“Damn!” Ty shakes his head. “That’s harsh.”

“So much for Brown and his assurance of epic love bullshit, right?” Dave snorts. “I don’t know, sure does seem to me like it’s not about me at all. Which is what I guess I was afraid of.” Ty just looks at him sympathetically. “I get it, he’s sixteen. I’m not expecting the epic love stuff. I’m _not_. I guess part of me just thought… no. None of me thought it. Part of me fucking _hoped_ Brown was right, that I was wrong. I probably shouldn’t even blame Brown.”

“So I guess… it was a good thing that you stopped or whatever? Over Thanksgiving?”

“Yeah, good for me?” Dave snorts. “I don’t know anymore, Ty. Maybe I’ll stay here over break and get a head start on next semester.”

“Isn’t there a big party this weekend with your gay group? Go to that, dude. Invite your dad down and do all the tourist stuff.” Ty grins. “I’ll be around. Alpharetta’s not so far from here.”

“Hometown boy.” Dave shakes his head. “Yeah, maybe. Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be. You need another break tonight, you can help me with my fake calculus.”

Dave snorts. “Right. That’s just sad.”

When they reach their room, Dave’s phone rings, and he scowls at it, setting it back down on the counter without looking at it. “Do me a favor?”

“Sure.”

“Keep this until after my exam tomorrow, at least. Maybe until after Friday’s exam. Let me know if my dad calls.”

“Okay, Special K.”

 

**Thursday, December 13th, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Miles**

Coach’s car isn’t there and Casey didn’t sound so good on the phone, so Miles lets himself into the house, kicking his shoes off and setting them on that little rack thing by the front door. Season’s not over yet and no good pissing anybody off with misplaced shoes.

Miles makes his way down the hall and taps lightly on Casey’s door. “Hey, Cherry? You in there?” He pushes the door open. “What happened in here?”

Casey’s room is trashed. Not rockstar-hotel-room trashed; more like magnificent-hissy-fit trashed, with stuff chucked across the room and strewn all over the floor, and Casey lying face down on the bed, probably worn out from the effort of the hissy fit.

“Cherry?” Miles says. “You asleep or wallowing or what?”

Casey mumbles something directly into his blankets that doesn’t make any sense except for Miles can pick out “David”, which, of course it’s about that. Mild-mannered little Casey wouldn’t smash up his nice alarm clock for anything less, plus, there’s also the fact that it’s _always_ about _David_.

“Mmhmm. You called Shep, didn’t you?” Miles asks.

Casey keeps his face smooshed into his blankets, but nods his head and mumbles something else.

“Well, and he didn’t take it so good, did he?” Miles shakes his head. “Cherry, I told you, wasn’t any reason for you to tell him about that. It’s none of his concern.” Casey starts to mumble something else, but Miles cuts him off before he can really mumble all that much. “Don’t give me that ‘best friend’ crap again, and anyway, I can’t understand a single damn word you’re saying, so flop over at least, will you?”

Casey rolls over onto his side and props his head up on his hand. He looks… well, like a mess, is how he looks, eyes and nose red like he’s been crying. Miles may have told him it was a bad idea to call Karofsky, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel bad about whatever it is that happened. Miles sits down on the edge of Casey’s bed.

“So, what’d he say?”

“Nothing,” Casey says.

“See now, I know I don’t look stupid, so how about you don’t talk to me like I’m stupid. What’d that big idiot say to you?” Miles asks.

Casey sighs so long and loud he sounds like he’s deflating. “He said, ‘That didn’t take long’.”

Miles snorts. “Well, Shep’s never been known for his biting wit or people skills, Cherry. He say anything else?”

“No,” Casey says, shaking his head slowly. “He didn’t have to. He sounded, just. He was _mad_ at me.”

“Cherry, you called him to tell him you fucked somebody else. How’d you think he was gonna sound?”

Casey frowns. “I thought, maybe. I dunno. Relieved. That I wouldn’t bother him like that anymore. I mean, he didn’t want me like that, so. I thought he’d be relieved.”

“Mmhmm,” Miles says, raising one eyebrow at Casey. “That all?”

Casey shrugs ever so slightly. Miles knows that particular shrug, so there’s not much need to belabor the point. Casey’s already figured out this was a mistake and Miles isn’t gonna make it that much worse with a bunch of ‘told you so’.

“He said he _can’t_ , Miles. He didn’t _want_ me,” Casey says, his voice cracking a little there. “Is it… is it that _nobody’s_ supposed to want me? Am I just that messed up? Is that why he’s so mad?”

Miles shakes his head at how utterly fucked up the situation is and how nobody seems interested in listening to anybody with any kind of sense or outside perspective or whose name is Miles Brown. “Cherry, you are _not_ that messed up. He’s acting like a damn teacup poodle and he’s mad because that’s just how he is. He’s gonna get over it eventually and then he’ll figure out he made a mistake, okay? Just don’t go telling him any more stupid shit.”

“I don’t know, Miles. I don’t think so.” Casey looks either adorably pitiful or pitifully adorable, and it kind of hurts looking at him. “I’m just not what he wants.”

“Well, then that’s his loss until he gets his head turned around the right way,” Miles says. “Which, if he’s really lucky, you’re still gonna like him a little bit when he finally manages it.”

“Oh, Miles,” Casey says. “Don’t be like that.”

“I’ll be however I wanna be, Cherry, and don’t you forget it,” Miles says, grinning. “Now, you quit feeling sorry for yourself and you come on over here.” He pats a spot right next to him on the bed. “I’m serious. No more moping.”

“I like moping.”

“No you don’t. You like candy and rainbows and fucking me with my jacket on.”

Casey’s face gets all pink and he says “ _Miles_!” but he doesn’t argue. And yeah, this isn’t gonna fix the situation for Casey, but Miles already tried talking some sense into Karofsky, who just proved he was too damn sheepdog-stupid to know a good thing when he’s got it. He’s also apparently too damn stupid to get that this here, with Casey and Miles, isn’t about love or even entirely about sex. It’s about _comfort_. Miles is self-aware enough to know he’s a stand-in—a pretty fantastic stand-in, but still a stand-in—for someone else. Hell, he’s even okay with being that, or at least, he’ll keep telling himself he’s okay with it.

“Let’s get those clothes off of you,” Miles says, already yanking Casey’s shirt up. “Don’t be so damn wiggly this time. It’s like trying to undress a sack of kittens.” Casey giggles and lets Miles pull the shirt off of him, and damned if the kid doesn’t wiggle on purpose when Miles goes for the button of his jeans. “Hey, hold still!”

“You hold still!” Casey says, as he’s trying to undo Miles’ jeans at the same time. Miles lets go of Casey and leans back a little against Casey’s pile of pillows, appreciating the aesthetics of Casey’s hands unzipping Miles’ jeans, of that pale skin with all those toasty little freckles all up and down it. Miles frowns at the cluster of circular scars on the inside of Casey’s arm, messing up all that pretty skin, then frowns harder when he notices the dime-sized red circle right at the crook of Casey’s elbow. That one wasn’t there before.

“Hey, Cherry?” Miles says, a little too casually, probably. “What happened to your arm?”

“Shut up, Miles,” Casey says, pulling Miles’ jeans down his hips.

“Casey—”

“No.” Casey looks up at Miles and his eyes are shiny and a little wild-looking. “Just. Not today, okay?”

“We _are_ gonna talk about this, though,” Miles says.

“Miles. Please. Not today.”

Then the rest of their clothes are off, and it’s all about skin on skin, and Miles agrees that today’s not a good day for talking about much of anything else. They _are_ gonna talk about this, though, he’ll insist on it. At least somebody in this whole mess needs to have some damn sense.

For now, though, Casey's fingers ghosting along Miles' sides feel damn fine, fine enough to make Miles forget about being the one with sense. Well, other than the sense of touch, sight, taste, and smell. Casey smells faintly like soap, and under that, faintly like pool, and under that, a lot like sex.

"Mmm, Cherry," Miles murmurs. "You smell good."

Casey freezes, then shakes himself all over like he's coming up from cold water. "Yeah, um. Don't say that," he says, and Miles doesn't like being told what not to say, but Casey shuts him up real sweet with his tongue in Miles' mouth, so he lets it slide.

Casey's whole body is flush against Miles', and Miles has got to admire those new swimmer muscles Casey picked up somewhere along the way since he’s stopped starving himself, all long and lean and sleek. Miles hasn't seen any of Casey’s swim meets, because he’s so weird about anybody coming to watch him, but he bets Casey's something to see, cutting through the water with his freckly-pale self.

Those freckles are nibble-worthy, so Miles does that. He nips at the side of Casey's arm until Casey makes a little squeal of protest, but he scowls when Miles kisses him along the top of his shoulder. Damn, all that stuff with Shep screwed this boy up good and proper, and Miles knows, much as he hates to admit it, that even the best fuck Miles can give won't unfuck things in Casey's head.

Best Miles can do is help Casey forget, or at least get his body somewhere so his head can work some stuff out on its own. Casey's body oughta have somebody treat it a little nicer than Casey treats it, that silky skin and the little sad crinkles around his eyes, that mess of scars on his arm.

"What do you want, Cherry?" Miles asks him. Casey just look back at him so lost and big-eyed, Miles can't ask him a second time without feeling cruel. "I'll put the jacket on, you want that?"

Casey shakes his head slowly. "No jacket," he says quietly, and he looks so goddamn sad that Miles would like to fly down to Atlanta just to slap some sense into Karofsky and then fly right back to Lima to slap some sense into Casey.

"Hats, then? You like hats? I could wear some hats for you," Miles says, and that cracks the sad look on Casey's face into an eyerolling smile.

"You are so weird, Miles," Casey says.

"Yeah, I'm a weird guy," Miles agrees. "Strong, too. You wanna see how strong I am, Cherry?" Casey giggles, but before he can answer, Miles half tackles him and pins him against the bed, digging one thumb up under Casey's arm.

"Miles!" Casey about shrieks. "No tickling! Oh, not fair, that is so not, stop!" Miles has him laughing so hard, Casey's about gasping for breath, so that's when Miles kisses him, right in the middle of that laugh. And that’s the thing, really. Miles can always make a _new_ friend—makes one just about every week—but Casey’s already his friend, they know each other pretty damn well, know how to make each other laugh, and it didn’t make it boring or keep the sex from being great. There might be something to this repeat performance thing, as long as everybody knows where they stand with each other.

Afterwards, when the both of them are lying on Casey’s bed all sweaty and sticky, Casey wraps his arms around Miles and holds him tight. Miles isn’t anybody’s idea of a cuddler, but he has a feeling that Casey just needs a minute to be the strong one, so he lets himself be held.

"I love him," Casey says, finally. “I love him and it hurts.”

"I know, Cherry. I wish I had magic answers."

That's the worst part, not having the answers, Miles thinks.

 

**Saturday, December 15th, 2012: Driving to Dayton — Casey**

Something’s up, because they’re fifteen minutes into their drive to Dayton and Miles hasn’t really been talking. Instead, Miles is brooding, looking out the window and occasionally over at Casey with a strange look on his face, and Casey has a tight feeling in his stomach. He wishes he hadn’t eaten before they left, but ‘meals aren’t optional’. House rules.

“What’s going on, Miles?” Casey asks.

“We allowed to talk about this today?” Miles asks.

Casey sighs, but doesn’t take his eyes off the road when he answers. “ _Fine._ We’ll talk about it.”

“What happened to your arm, Cherry?”

“Miles,” Casey says.

“Don’t _Miles_ me,” Miles says. “What happened to you arm?”

“What do you _think_?” Casey says, softly.

“I thought you weren’t doing that anymore.”

“Yeah. Well. I, um. I thought that, too.”

“You been doing this again for a while?” Miles asks him. “’Cause I didn’t see any marks on you the other day at my place, but hell, I wasn’t looking for them or anything. Did I miss something?”

“No,” Casey says. “It was after.”

“Right after?”

Casey shrugs a little, keeping his hands on the wheel and not looking over at Miles. “Not, um. Not _right_ after. Just… after.”

“Was it after you talked to Shep?”

“Why?”

“I just need to know if I’m swiping my Ma’s credit card and flying down to Atlanta to have a talk with—”

“ _No_ , Miles,” Casey says. “No. It’s not his fault. I’d already done it. You just, you don’t tell him about this. You don’t tell _anybody_ about it.” He hears how frantic he sounds, but he can’t really do much to control his pitch. Miles cannot, _cannot_ tell David. He cannot bother David with this. David has already heard enough from Casey and about Casey, and Miles needs to not make it any worse.

“Casey—”

“ _No_. Miles, you _can’t_ tell people. Please, okay? Please.”

Miles huffs a loud sigh. “Okay, Cherry. Okay, I won’t say anything… as long as you don’t do it again. You planning on doing it again?”

Casey doesn’t answer. He hadn’t really planned on doing it the last time. Even when he bought the lighter, it wasn’t specifically for _that_. It was an impulse, just having it, something he could use if he needed to, made him feel better.

“Casey?” Miles repeats, a little more insistently. “You planning on doing this to yourself again?”

“I’m not planning anything, Miles,” Casey says. “Can we stop talking about this now?”

“Fine, Cherry, have it your way,” Miles says. “Just want you to know I’m serious about this. You do it again, I see even a hint of it, and I’m calling your Sheepdog.”

“He’s not _my_ Sheepdog.”

Miles snorts. “Dumbass, Shep is always gonna be _your_ Sheepdog.”

Casey rolls his eyes at Miles, because for all of Miles’ insistence that he’s some kind of people-genius, Casey’s not really sure anything Miles has said to him about David has even bordered on accurate. And even if it were, if it had been even a little bit true, Casey’s messed it up enough that it probably doesn’t matter anymore, anyway.

“So, I think you should find you somebody today,” Miles announces. “At the center. Somebody hot and, ooh, maybe one of those cute, dumb ones from Elida. How’d you like that, Cherry? Make you a new friend today.”

“Miles.”

“Don’t _Miles_ me, Cherry, I’m serious. Somebody to take your mind off of things. You need a distraction. Hell, _I_ need a distraction.”

“Then _you_ make another new friend,” Casey mutters, loud enough for Miles to hear him.

“At least tell me you’ll talk to somebody today, and _not_ about the party or PFLAG or Shep,” Miles says. “Talk about something interesting. _Not_ Shep. I don’t wanna hear his name even once.”

“I don’t want to talk about him.”

“Well, good, see? We’re in agreement with my excellent plan. You talk to somebody, you make a new friend for today, and then you don’t have to call me every single time you get bored and you’re looking for an ass to tap,” Miles says.

“Miles!”

“What?” Miles asks, like he’s genuinely confused by Casey’s response, and since he’s Miles, he probably _is_. “Variety, Cherry. Spice of life and all that. No strings, just have some fun, and keep it safe. It’ll be good for you. Think of it like therapy or something.”

“I don’t know, Miles,” Casey sighs, glancing over at Miles.

“Just think about it, alright?” Miles says, and Casey sees Miles’ eyes darting over towards Casey’s arm. “Better than the alternative.”

 

**Sunday, December 16th, 2012: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

“Hello?”

“Hey, Dad.” Dave sighs a little, because part of him was hoping he’d have managed to call the house line when his dad wasn’t there. “Wasn’t sure you’d be back from church yet!”

“Just walked in the door,” Paul says, and sure enough, Dave can hear the jingle of keys being hung up. “How are you? How did your finals go? Oh, and did you pick a flight?”

“I know I have an A in my architecture courses, so that’s good. I really don’t have a good feeling about CS, though.” Dave shrugs, even though Paul can’t see him. 

“CS, that the computer programming class?”

“Yeah, that’s the one. Listen, uh. About the flight. I know I was planning to come home, but Ty suggested something different.”

“Oh?”

“He pointed out I’ve not really seen that much of Atlanta. You could come down here, we could get that CityPass thing, try out some restaurants, that kind of thing. The main thing, though, I kinda want to get a head start on next semester.” Dave stares out the window, because maybe it’s a coward’s excuse, but he can’t deny that getting a start on the next semester will be a help in avoiding disaster. That, and the lighter load. 

“Ah.” Paul pauses for a moment. “Well, I can’t deny that it sounds like a reasonable plan. Certainly more to do around Atlanta than here in Lima,” Paul chuckles. “Not bored yet?”

Dave laughs. “No, I went to a holiday party last night, and I’m heading out with Ty and some of the guys from the team later, not exactly sure where we’re going. Ty made a list of places I should visit. Depending on when you fly down.”

“Well, I’ll take a look at the flights later and make sure I can get away for awhile,” Paul says. “David? Are you sure everything is fine? I know what you said about your programming class, but I mean, other than that?”

“Nope, everything’s fine, Dad,” Dave says with forced cheer. “Send me your flight information when you book it, okay?”

“All right.” Paul still sounds dubious. “I’ll talk to you later, David.”

“Bye, Dad.”

 

**Tuesday, December 18th, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

“So, anyway, thanks for coming today, and, um. Get food before you go!” Casey says, wrapping up the PFLAG meeting. He shoots Taylor a thumbs-up from across the circle and Taylor thumbs-up right back at him.

Miles, however, looks considerably less impressed. “Where were you at yesterday?” he says, raising an eyebrow. “I looked for you and I called you. Called you Sunday, too. You avoiding me, Cherry?”

“I was around,” Casey says. “I had swim. We did family-type stuff on Sunday. It’s fine, Miles.”

“Mmhmm. I’m sure. How about you show me your ‘fine’ self, then?”

“Miles!”

“Uh-uh. Don’t _Miles_ me, Cherry,” Miles says, in a voice that doesn’t allow any argument. “You’re following me to the boys’ bathroom, and when we get there, you’re rolling up your sleeves so I can look at your arms.”

“ _Miles._ ”

“No, that is how it’s gonna be, and we aren’t discussing it,” Miles insists. “And that’s what we’re doing every day until your arms are all sweet and freckly again, like they’re supposed to be. You got it?”

Casey glares at Miles, who glares right back. “Fine,” Casey sighs. “But I don’t need a babysitter.”

“The hell you don’t. Things have been falling to shit since you lost yours.”

“Miles, that’s not okay. Don’t say stuff like that.”

“I’ll say whatever I want,” Miles huffs. “Now, you and me, bathroom. Right now.”

Casey sighs, but lets himself be hauled out of the classroom—plastering on a sunny smile and waving at the PFLAG stragglers as he goes—and into the nearest boys’ bathroom, where Miles continues to march him back in the handicap stall, latching the door behind them.

“Now. Arms.” Miles crosses his arms across his chest and sets his jaw like there’s no use in arguing, so Casey doesn’t. He just slides off his jacket and rolls up his sleeves. The newer burn in the crook of his arm has already mostly faded into the old ones, and Miles scowls at it for a moment before nodding. “Good. That’s better. It’s no good messing yourself up like that, Cherry. It’s not cool and I don’t like it.”

Miles takes Casey by the left arm and deliberately presses a kiss into the crook of Casey’s elbow. “Somebody’s gotta look after you. I told him that. I told him if he wouldn’t do it, I would, because somebody needs to.”

Casey closes his eyes, because Miles’ mouth is pretty awesome, even on Casey’s arm, even in a boys’ bathroom, even in the middle of this awkward conversation. “When?” he asks. “When did you tell him that?”

“Few weeks ago,” Miles says, kissing the inside of Casey’s wrist. “After you got so upset at Thanksgiving. I thought maybe he’d come to his damn senses, but apparently he just can’t be bothered to make things right. Dumbass Shep doesn’t appreciate what he’s got.”

“Don’t say that, Miles,” Casey says. “Please don’t. I just can’t, okay? It’s not his fault. His school is so hard, he’s busy—”

“Too busy to call?” Miles says. “Or, hell, drop you an email?”

“It’s not his fault he doesn’t feel the same way I do,” Casey insists. “It’s not his fault I threw myself at him, either. If that’s not what he wants – well, he’s already done too much anyway. I don’t need him to take care of me. I can do just fine.”

“Hmm. Yeah, I can see that. You’re keeping it together just great,” Miles says, with a pointed brush of his thumb against the scar on Casey’s arm. “Just great.”

“Shut up, Miles.”

“You can feel free to try and shut me up. We’ve still got about six minutes until the bell.”

It’s Miles, and he is how he is, so what can Casey do, really? He lets Miles press him against the stall door and kiss him until the bell rings, and when Miles holds him by the hips, Casey’s distracted enough that he barely flinches. 

 

**Tuesday, December 18th, 2012: Atlanta, Georgia — Ty**

“Oh, look, there’s Brittany!” Danny says excitedly, looking up as Ty closes the door. “Ty, come see!”

Ty crosses over to where Coop and Danny are looking at the laptop and grins. “Must still be warmer in Florida!”

“They’re just so bouncy,” Coop says wistfully.

Ty laughs and hits Coop in the back of the head. “Scoot over and let me watch,” he commands, the three of them almost a tight fit. “Looks like she’s going to make it through the semester safe from the RA.”

“She’s had a busy day,” Coop says. “She ate a bowl of ice cream for breakfast, and then she went and took a shower and came back all wet, and then she read a magazine, and then she forgot the cam was on!”

“That was real nice,” Danny says, grinning. “Even after she remembered, she just kept on getting dressed nice and slow.”

“So bouncy,” Coop sighs. “The law of gravity doesn’t even apply, I swear.”

“Ty, do you think Special K will have her come visit?”

“Maybe?” Ty shrugs. “I mean, I guess he could. He hasn’t mentioned it.”

“He ought to. Danny put meeting her on his bucket list,” Coop explains. “Special K should do it from the kindness of his heart. He’s got some kindness in there somewhere.”

“Bucket list?” Ty nods. “Yeah, maybe so. Give him a little distraction, anyway.”

“He’s been grumpier’n usual,” Coop says. “It’d probably be good for him to have a friend visit. I’ll even volunteer to give up my bed for a couple of nights!”

“I’d be willing to share mine.” Danny pauses and glares at Coop. “Not with you, Coop. With Brittany. You can share with Miss Butter Nibs.”

“Yeah, he has,” Ty nods, looking over at the clock. “I sent him out to explore the city today. Maybe that’ll have helped.”

“What bug crawled up his ass? Pressures of architecture finally getting to him?” Coop asks. 

“I wish, that’d be easier,” Ty says, sighing. “Nah, it’s Casey. Or not–Casey, I guess.”

“Casey went somewhere?” Danny looks confused, but that’s nothing particularly new, so Ty just waits on Coop to respond. 

“Yeah, I was wondering if something had happened,” Coop says, nodding. “No phone calls lately, and used to be you could set your clock by ’em. Sucks for Special K.”

“I liked that nice Mormon boy,” Danny says, looking crestfallen. “Why’d he have to leave?”

“He didn’t leave,” Ty says patiently. “He just… found someone else, I guess. A Miles Brown.”

“Miles Brown? That’s a douchey-sounding name,” Coop declares. “Guess Special K’s not taking it so great.”

Danny sounds mournful. “What could he have that Special K doesn’t?” He pauses. “A bike?”

“Well, Miles Brown is still in Ohio,” Ty says. “Still in Lima, even, and Special K’s down here, so. Miles Brown has proximity. And probably a lot more free time on his hands for seduction.” That sounds like something out of one of his mama’s romance novels, actually, but it makes sense, too. 

“Seduction does take time,” Danny agrees. “Hey, do you think that means I’ll have more luck now that our season’s over and the volleyball season’s over?”

“No,” Coop says. “Sorry. You’re gonna need to get yourself a webcam, too. Maybe Special K’ll send Britt a link to your Danny-cam, and you can seduce her via the Internet.”

“That’d get you more time for seducing, for sure.” Ty nods after a moment. “Good idea, Coop. Danny-cam first, and we’ll work on Special K scheduling a visit.”

“Yeah, I think distraction’s just the thing to help him get over Casey and that Miles douche,” Danny says. 

Ty shrugs. “Or at least give Casey time to get over the Miles douche.”

 

**Wednesday, December 19th, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

“Breakfast’s up!” Shannon calls through the house. “Chocolate chip pancakes with syrup, side of bacon!”

“Getting dressed!” Casey calls back. “Two minutes!”

Casey pulls his jeans up, positioning them carefully on his hips so they don’t rub against the new spot, then finishes loading all his books and such into his backpack. Pack on shoulder, he bounces down the hall and into the kitchen. “Smells great,” he says, hanging his backpack over the back of his chair before he sits down. “Can I skip the bacon, though?”

“Nope,” Shannon says cheerfully. “But if you eat the bacon, there’s more pancakes waiting.”

“Those pancakes are the size of my _head_ ,” Casey says. “I don’t need the waiting ones! Come on, _please_? It’s too much grease on a swim practice day. Can I eat, um, cheese or something instead?”

Shannon just shakes her head, frowning slightly. “You know better, Casey. Besides, it’s not that greasy, I cooked it Monty’s way.”

“One piece.”

“I was gonna give you four, kid, so how about two?”

“I’ll sink to the bottom of the pool,” Casey says. “I’ll drown, and when they do the autopsy, they’ll find that bacon and they’ll _know_.” He shakes his head sadly. “Death by bacon.”

“I think I’ll take that chance,” Shannon says wryly. “Eat up.”

Casey sighs. “I hope they’ll bring nice flowers, at least,” he says, cutting his pancake into the tiniest possible bites. “I’m thinking maybe those purple ones with the spots, the ones that look like trumpets. Foxglove, I think. Miles will probably help people pick the right stuff out. I’ll let him know this morning, so he can already get right on that before my swim practice.”

“You do that. I’ll make sure he doesn’t slack off on the field thinking about your flowers, though.”

“At least _Miles_ will miss me. I mean, only because nobody else but Rick will put up with him, but still, Miles will miss me.”

Shannon snorts. “You’re a saint, kid, for putting up with Brown. And are you kidding? That funeral’s gonna cost me a pretty penny, all those people showing up. We’re gonna have to get those closed circuit TV’s set up and everything.”

“Miles has a lot of excellent qualities,” Casey says. “Well, he has _some_ , anyway. So I hear. Or, so he tells me. Often.” He chews a bite of pancake. “No, he’s great. PFLAG will take up the most room, so, _oh_! I know! You can just have it at the center! I bet they’d let you use the space for free!”

“Too far to drive.” Shannon shakes her head. “Gotta be in Lima. Sorry. Maybe at the pool?”

“Burial at sea! Viking style. Yes, that’s exactly it.”

“See? Now I’ve got to shell out for those helmets.” Shannon straightens with a grin. “I gotta finish getting ready to go.”

“Already? We didn’t even talk about my boat yet!” Casey uses his very best whiny voice.

“Sorry, you’ll have to put off dying so we can discuss the boat tonight!”

“Well, there go all my plans,” Casey sighs dramatically. “But it’s dinner with Paul tonight, anyway, so we’ll have to talk about the boat after that.”

“Right,” Shannon nods sharply. “Cheery bedtime discussion, check!”

“I have some thoughts about the music, too.”

Shannon laughs and heads out of the kitchen. “See you tonight, Casey!”

“It involves bagpipes!” he calls after her.

There’s more laughter as Casey can hear Shannon collecting her things and then heading out the garage door. A few moments later, the garage door rattles open, Shannon’s car starts, and then finally the garage door lowers.

As soon as Casey hears Shannon’s car heading down the street, he stands up, grabs a plastic bag from the bag-holder thing under the sink, scrapes his remaining breakfast—which is still most of it—into the bag, and ties it off. He’ll ditch it at the gas station on the way to school. It’s just way too much to start the morning, especially when there’s dinner with Paul that night.

If someone were to ask Casey what a Karofsky man was eating, he’d probably have about a one-in-three chance of guessing it right. Burgers, steak, or chili, and Casey might miss it entirely on occasion, but only because sometimes they mix it up with pork chops. Dinner with the Karofskys was always kind of like eating with a pack of the biggest, most mild-mannered wolves, with all the meat and meat with a side of meat. Oh, and also pie.

Casey should have opened some sort of betting pool revolving around dinner night with Paul, because he would definitely have won some money betting on steak. Casey finishes his school day, goes to swim practice, and then he and Paul both pull into the parking of Ponderosa Steakhouse at just before six-thirty and walk in together after a brief, manly handshake of greeting.

“Looking forward to the Christmas vacation?” Paul asks as they’re seated by the host.

“I can’t look forward to anything until this party is over,” Casey confesses. “I kind of wish we hadn’t agreed to do it.”

“It does seem like a considerable amount of work, but I’m sure you’ll all have fun.”

“Organizing Alphabet Soups is like herding cats. And apparently, there’s always going to be a fight _about_ glitter or involving glitter, I don’t even know,” Casey says, shaking his head. “I didn’t see it. April told Miles, and Miles told me, and anyway. Glitter.”

“April’s that girl from Dayton, right?”

“Yes. You should hear how she and Miles talk to each other. Well, no, you shouldn’t. It’s _awful_!” Casey’s cheeks feel hot just thinking about it.

Paul chuckles. “If Miles Brown is involved, I’m sure it is!”

The conversation suddenly feels extremely awkward, because Casey isn’t really sure he wants to talk about Miles with any Karofskys ever again, so definitely time to move on to a new topic. “But anyway, um. I’m sure it’ll be fine. It’s just time consuming right now.”

“Right, right,” Paul agrees. “The break from school will really feel like a break that way, I’m sure.”

“Yeah. Maybe,” Casey says. He shreds the corner of his napkin and the two of them sit in silence for a couple of minutes. The waiter’s presence is a welcome interruption.

Paul orders a huge sirloin with a baked potato, and Casey orders tilapia, mainly to get Paul to make that shocked and horrified ‘I can’t believe you think that’s real food’ face that reminds Casey of David. “What _is_ tilapia?” Paul asks after the server leaves.

“It’s a fish,” Casey says. “I’m not sure if it’s ocean or lake.”

“Oh, well.” Paul shrugs. “I like a nice fried trout.”

“Tilapia doesn’t really taste like much of anything, so it just tastes like whatever they put on it,” Casey explains. “Usually they put pretty good stuff on it, though.”

“Ah, well, okay,” Paul nods. “So I don’t know a thing about art, but apparently David’s going to take me the art museum in Atlanta, anyway.”

“Oh, you’re going to visit David?” Casey ask. His stomach hurts; maybe dinner’s not a great idea. “When, um. When?

“Oh, didn’t he tell you?” Paul looks slightly surprised. “In just a few days, actually. He’s staying in Atlanta over the break, exploring the city a bit and then getting a head start on next semester.”

“You’re going for Christmas?” Casey’s not sure why his mouth feels so dry. His tongue is sticking to the inside of his cheek or something. His words don’t sound like they’re coming out quite right. “He’s not. He’s not coming home?”

“No,” Paul sounds a little regretful. “I’m sure that he’s mentioned the transition was a little rough. Lima City Schools don’t really prepare students for a school like Georgia Tech.”

“No. No, I guess they wouldn’t,” Casey says, quietly. “He’s not coming home at all?”

Paul shakes his head. “His roommate—well, one of them, anyway, Tyler—is showing him some of the less touristy parts of the city this week.”

“Oh.”

“It’s probably good to get to know the place he’ll be living for awhile,” Paul continues, seemingly oblivious to Casey’s quiet turn. “Especially since he’ll have shorter workouts in the spring.”

Casey doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have anything to say. Luckily, the waiter comes and plops the plates on the table in front of them, and Casey can pretend to pick at his fish instead of pretending to have a conversation about how David isn’t coming home and Casey isn’t going to have a chance to try to fix the horrible, horrible thing that’s happened.

When Paul’s plate is clear, he wipes his mouth and starts to talk again. “So, junior year. Thinking about colleges yet?”

Casey opens his mouth to answer, but no sound comes out, so he takes a sip of his pop and tries again. His voice still sounds weird, but at least it’s sound. “Um. I had been. I don’t know now.”

“Well, plenty of time, still. Thought about a major?”

“Um. Not too much.” Casey pokes at his tilapia with his fork, shredding it and pushing it around his plate. “I haven’t really thought that far ahead.”

“Still like math?”

Casey nods. “Yeah. I’m taking that AP computer programming class online, too, and that’s pretty cool.”

“It’s good they’ve started to offer that.” Paul frowns, looking distracted. “Starting to offer some important things.”

Casey nods again. “Yeah. It’s still Lima, though. No real teacher or anything. I don’t know. Maybe I won’t even need it. I don’t know what I’m going to do or anything like that.” He feels like he’s talking and talking, but not saying anything that makes a lot of sense. He moves the fish around his plate a little more. It actually looks like someone’s been eating it now.

“Exposure can’t hurt,” Paul says seriously, shaking his head slightly.

“Maybe not.” Casey shrugs.

“Just, you know.” Paul nods suddenly. “Study skills, time management, challenge. They ought to emphasize those things.”

Casey frowns at his fish. He can’t really bring himself to look directly at Paul. “So, um. David. His finals? They went ok?”

“Those architecture classes, he just loves those,” Paul says. “I know those went well, real well.”

“Good. Yeah, that’s good. That those went well. It’s really hard, Georgia Tech. He’s really busy.”

“Yes,” Paul agrees. “Busy. Difficult.” He sighs. “Well, do you want some dessert, Casey?”

“Oh. No, no thank you. I owe Aunt Shannon a discussion about a boat, and I don’t want to keep her up too late or anything,” Casey says.

Paul chuckles. “A boat? Sounds like fun.”

“A Viking funeral boat.”

“Oh, well.” Paul looks startled. “Maybe not as much fun, then.”

“Not for the Viking,” Casey says. 

After Paul pays, they walk out to their cars, and Paul shakes Casey’s hand. “We’ll try to do this again in January,” Paul says, smiling.

“Sure,” Casey agrees, even though he knows it’s as likely to _not_ happen as it is to happen. They both have busy schedules, and sometimes Paul forgets that he means to make plans. “Thanks again for dinner. And, um, tell David… well, you two just have a really nice visit, okay?”

“I hope so,” Paul agrees. “Merry Christmas, Casey.”

“Merry Christmas,” Casey parrots back. Paul gets in his car and drives away, and Casey sits in the Lemon for a few minutes before pulling his phone out of his pocket and dialing. “Miles? I’m coming over.”

 

**Saturday, December 22nd, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Rick**

“This is almost just like that dance we went to,” Rick says to Brown and Casey. The community center is full of all kinds of Soups from all over western Ohio, like a whole Soup potluck. There’s no actual soup to eat, though, just cookies and stuff like that. 

Casey frowns and Brown smacks Rick on the shoulder. “Foots, I swear. Do you just say everything that comes into your head?”

“What? I was just saying it was like that dance!” Rick protests. “On account of how we all went to that together. Only, obviously Karofsky’s not here this time. Oh, yeah, and I’ve got an actual date.”

“Seriously, Foots. You’re killing me here. Just stop talking,” Brown says, shaking his head. “Please, just stop moving your lips and letting noise come out.”

“I guess I’ll just go find Alicia, then,” Rick says. “She likes it when I move my lips.”

“Oversharing, Foots. Keep your lips away from my sister.”

Rick shrugs and grins, because of course he’s not keeping his lips away from Alicia. The kissing is one of the best parts. Casey and Brown give each other some kind of look that probably means something, but since Rick doesn’t know what it means, he just moseys on over to where Alicia’s talking to Taylor and Maci. Maci looks excited, but Taylor keeps looking around the community center like he’s trying to escape. 

“Hey, Alicia,” Rick says, giving her a kiss on the cheek. “Your brother says I’m supposed to keep my lips away from you, but I’m not going to.”

Alicia giggles. “My brother’s not in charge of you or me, thank goodness.”

“Well, he sure thinks he is, anyway,” Rick mutters. “He and Casey are being weird, anyway, so I left ’em by the punch and cookies.”

“Don’t do that!” Taylor says, looking alarmed. “There won’t be any cookies left!”

“They weren’t eating any cookies,” Rick says, squinting his eyes at Taylor to try and figure out why the cookies are such an emergency. A cookie emergency’s pretty funny, actually. “They were just standing over there being all strange and mysterious and weird.”

“Daniel, my brother is always strange,” Alicia says. “It just means Casey must be spending too much time with him, is all.”

“Oh, Alicia, don’t be mean!” Maci says. “I think they’re cute together.”

Taylor squints and looks over towards Miles and Casey. “Some days I think maybe they’re going to get together. Other days I remember how Casey was with Karofsky, you know?”

“Yeah, he’s not like that with Brown,” Rick says. “He’s like some other kind of way with Brown.”

“My brother ought to leave him alone, I’ve decided,” Alicia says. “At least, as more than friends. They can be friends. That’s all.”

“I don’t think Brown thinks you’re in charge of him, either, Alicia,” Rick points out. “Though maybe he should think about letting you be.”

“It doesn’t really matter what he thinks.” Alicia shrugs. “It works best if he doesn’t think about it, actually. I’ll talk to Ma.”

“Leave them alone! They’re sweet,” Maci says. 

“I don’t think Brown’s ever sweet, Maci,” Rick says. “He’s okay a lot of the time and he’s even nice if he thinks nobody’s paying attention, but I don’t think he’s sweet.” He thinks about it for a second and adds, “Come to think of it, Casey’s not sweet either. He’s just small enough that nobody notices he’s not sweet.”

“We’re gossips,” Taylor says with a frown. “How’d that happen?”

“It’s my brother’s fault. I’m sure of it.”

 

**Saturday, December 22nd, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

The introduction portion of the party goes smoothly, and it turns out they have people from at least six other clubs or groups, plus some from the schools that don’t have any kind of organized anything. Casey counts one hundred thirty-three people in attendance, and only around thirty of them are from McKinley, so that probably means the party is a success. 

Casey’s mostly ready for the party to be over so he can leave and not be at a party anymore. Or plan and organize a party. Or talk to more than four or five people at a time for at least a few days. He’s glad for the holiday break, even if it’s not going to be what he’d originally expected, because at least it gives him an excuse to hole up in his room and not have to deal with people for a little while. He can occasionally emerge for peppermint bark or Miles.

And actually, since either of those can be gotten and then brought back to Casey’s room, he really doesn’t have to leave it for very long at all. It’s a flawless plan.

Speaking of Miles, Casey noticed him slowly making his way across the room during the introductions, which means he’s probably looking for a new friend. Casey honestly doesn’t know how Miles has that much energy, but he always does. He looks around the room, and sure enough, spots Miles talking to a vaguely familiar-looking blond boy with very white teeth.

Casey snags Peter and gestures in Miles and the blond boy’s direction. “Who’s that? I think I’ve seen him before.”

“Oh yeah, that’s Austin,” Peter says. “He doesn’t show up a lot, but he’s probably been there once or twice when you’ve been there with Miles.”

“Austin, hmm… oh, I bet it’s _that_ Austin!” Casey says.

“Which Austin?” 

“Legendary Austin,” Casey explains. “He’s blonder than I pictured.”

“And now he’s leaving with Miles,” Peter says. “Seriously, does Miles sleep with _everybody_?”

“Yes, pretty much,” Casey says. “That’s just how Miles is. Though, Austin’s not a new friend, so maybe that means Miles already ran out of people to be his new friend.” He shrugs. “He’ll be back later. I’m saving him some cookies.”

Peter looks at Casey dubiously. “I guess whatever you two have going on works for you.”

“The best thing to do with Miles is just let him be Miles. Everybody’s happiest that way,” Casey says. “He’s not complicated and he makes people feel good. It’s probably really nice to be Miles.”

 

**Saturday, December 22nd, 2012: Lima, Ohio — Miles**

Miles was willing to give this whole repeat performance thing a try, because it’s been working out really well with Casey, but even though the actual sex with Austin was just fine, Miles still feels restless. He didn’t get that new friend thrill, and he considers looking for a new–new friend to take that edge off. He doesn’t know why he feels like he feels, but he does know he doesn’t like it.

He talks to a few people, but nobody really pings that new friend radar in a way that makes him want to put any effort into them, so when he sees Rick and Alicia giggling like fools over something, he makes his way over to them. 

“What’s so funny?” Miles demands. “Foots, you’re not being inappropriate with my sister in the middle of a room full of people, are you?”

“Miles, you are paranoid,” Alicia says, glaring at him for a moment.

“Brown, you smell like a hooker,” Rick declares happily. 

“Like you’ve ever smelled a hooker,” Miles says, shaking his head. “And if you have, you’d best take about five steps away from my sister, with your hooker-smelling self.”

“I’ve never smelled a hooker,” Rick protests. “I’ve just got a really good imagination.” 

“Anyway, I don’t smell like anything,” Miles says. “So just hush up your chit-chat. Anything interesting happening?”

Alicia shakes her head, but her smile is smug. “What kind of interesting, Miles?”

“Why don’t you just tell me whatever it is you’re smirking about?” Miles says.

Rick snickers and points to a dark back corner of the room, where Taylor and Maci seem to be engaged in an epic make-out session. “Taylor’s finally getting him some,” Rick says, with a huge grin.

“Well, good for Taylor!” Miles says. “I always say I think people oughta be less repressed. It’s not good for you to bottle all that stuff up. Just look at what it did to Shep.”

Alicia looks at him reprovingly. “There are things you shouldn’t talk about everywhere. No one wants to see the dirty laundry.”

Miles thinks that considering he’s the one taking care of the stuff Karofsky couldn’t or wouldn’t take care of, he ought to be able to talk about it, but there’s no point in getting Alicia wound up if she’s already decided that’s the hill she wants to die on, as Ma puts it. Miles shrugs. “Just calling it like I see it. Anyway, good for Taylor. Maci’s a hottie, even if she’s got the poor sense to hang out with you people. And I’m talking about you, Foots.”

“See? It’s just like I told Maci,” Rick says. “Not sweet at all.”

“Oh, I’m sweet,” Miles says. “Just not for you. You don’t know how to appreciate my sweetness.”

Alicia rolls her eyes. “Let’s go talk to those people from Troy again, Daniel, so my brother can keep being delusional.”

“I’m not delusional,” Miles protests. “Oh, either of you seen Cherry anywhere?”

“He was talking to a couple of people over there,” Alicia says over her shoulder, gesturing vaguely to her right as she steers Rick with her. 

Miles heads in the direction Alicia pointed. One of the good things about Casey, even though he’s sort of teensy, he’s still easy to spot in a crowd with that hair. Miles walks up behind him and puts his hand on the small of Casey’s back. Casey jumps slightly, but when he sees it’s Miles, he smiles.

“Hi, Miles. Did you have a fun time with your friend?” Casey asks.

Miles shrugs nonchalantly. “Eh, fun enough I guess.” 

“I saved you some cookies,” Casey says. “Wasn’t sure when you’d be back, so I got you a few.”

“That’s real thoughtful of you, Cherry,” Miles tells him. “So, what you think? We did the set up, so we can cut out of here a little bit early and let Taylor and them do the clean up?”

Casey’s face gets a little pink, like he knows exactly what Miles is thinking, but he asks, “What are we going to do if we leave early?”

“Oh, well,” Miles says. “I can think of a few things.”


	8. January 2013

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And I sang Oh, What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? What do I do without you?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Continuance of self-harm, potentially troubling sexual behaviors.

**Tuesday, January 1st, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Miles**

“Well,” Miles announces, and both the snuggly couples at least pretend to make an effort to look in his direction. “It’s three in the morning, and as riveting as the conversation’s been, there’s not a one of you worth staying up for.” Casey fakes a grumpy face up at Miles from where he’s sprawled across Miles’ legs, and Miles pokes him in the ribs to make him giggle. “Except for Cherry here. I’d stay up a whole ’nother ten minutes for Cherry’s sake.”

“Good thing for me I wasn’t staying up for you at all,” Alicia says, nudging Maci with her foot. “C’mon, Maci, we’ll go on up to my room so my loser brother can feel good about his leadership in making us go to bed.”

“Can Taylor come too?” Maci asks, giggling like she’s been hitting the non-existent champagne. She’s practically wallowing on Taylor at this point, not that Taylor seems to mind it. “I bet he’d fit on the air mattress.”

“Wouldn’t,” Taylor says sadly. “Another inch. Is there more of that dip left?”

“Maybe half an inch,” Casey grumbles… quietly, so only Miles can hear him, and Miles stifles a laugh.

“I think Foots finished it off,” Miles says. He leans over Casey to whack Rick on the knee. “Foots. D’you eat the rest of that dip?”

“Nope,” Rick says, shaking his head slowly. “I fed the last bite to Alicia.”

“There you go,” Miles tells Taylors. “Foots shoved the last bite into my piglet of a sister’s mouth.”

“Ma doesn’t like it when you compare pigs and people, Miles,” Alicia says in her best Cheerio voice. “Remember? It’s mean to the pigs, she said.” She sniffs. “A piglet would choke on cheese, anyway.”

“You’re a precious, perfect piglet,” Miles counters, in _his_ best Ma-voice. “Just so precious. Now go up to your room so I can sort these boys out. You and Maci are distracting Foots and Taylor.”

“Duh.” Alicia rolls her eyes and stands up, offering Maci her hand, and the two of them grin over their shoulders before heading up the stairs.

“I’m not distracted,” Rick says. “I’m tired. It’s past my bedtime by… hours.”

“Well, good. You can grab that throw blanket over there and sleep right here on this couch, unless Taylor wants to fight you for it,” Miles says. “And don’t even think about going upstairs. I will hear you walking by my door and I will send you back downstairs minus your personals.”

Rick looks like he isn’t sure if he should be horrified or confused, so he does what Miles says and grabs the throw blanket. “I won’t go up there, I swear,” he says.

“Damn right you won’t,” Miles answers cheerfully. “Now, Taylor, you want to sleep in the chair or did you want me to get you some more blankets to sleep on the floor?”

“Wow, Miles, such hospitality,” Taylor says wryly. “You do remember _he’s_ the one dating your sister, right? Not me?”

“Fight him for it if you want,” Miles says, shrugging, “but I figured you’d be upstairs trying to squeeze your lanky self onto that teensy air mattress with Maci in about fifteen minutes, so why put poor ol’ Foots on the floor if you aren’t even planning on using the couch?”

Taylor laughs. “Couch is a poor second to his girlfriend, but sure.”

“You forgot about Casey,” Rick says, looking like the thought just occurred to him. “He’s gotta sleep somewhere, too.” Taylor elbows Rick and rolls his eyes, shaking his head slightly. “What?” Rick asks. “What’d I say?”

“I’ll just, um. Sleep on Miles’ floor?” Casey offers, but not even Rick looks like he buys it, because suddenly Rick’s giving Taylor an odd look, and Taylor rolls his eyes again, this time with his lips pressed together, trying not to smile or something.

“Sure, that sounds like a plan,” Miles says, ignoring Taylor and his eye-rolling and Rick and his looks. “Come on, Cherry. I’ll find some blankets for you.” He gives Casey a little nudge, and Casey stretches before rolling off Miles’ lap and onto the floor.

“Intentional!” Casey says, before Miles or anybody else can say anything about it.

“Oh, I just bet it was,” Miles mutters. “C’mon. Blankets.” He stands up, grabs Casey by the wrist, and gives him a tug up onto his feet. 

As he and Casey head up the stairs, Miles hears Taylor talking to Rick. “Yeah, right. Blankets. Just like I’m sleeping here.”

Casey doesn’t say anything as he follow Miles up to his room, or after they’re inside Miles’ room, or even after Miles shuts and locks the bedroom door. Miles backs Casey up against the door, presses one of his legs between Casey’s as he leans his head down to kiss him. Miles pulls away to flip off the bedroom light and says, “You’re _not_ sleeping on the floor, by the way.”

“I didn’t really think I was,” Casey says in agreement, and Miles takes his wrist again, leading him the few paces across the dark bedroom to the edge of Miles’ bed. Miles sits on the end of his bed, his hands already moving down Casey’s chest and stomach to the front of his jeans, undoing the button. He only has to unzip the zipper halfway before Casey’s jeans start to fall off Casey’s hips. Miles frowns in the dark, makes a mental note to watch Casey eating breakfast in the morning, because it could be a baggier pair of jeans or that Casey’s a couple of months into swim season, but it could be that Casey’s not eating like he ought to again. 

Since the jeans are already on their way down, Miles gives them a yank and pulls them down Casey’s legs. Casey steps out of them, and Miles hears the sound of jeans being kicked across the floor, followed by another soft thud as Casey’s shirt joins his jeans. Miles runs his hands down Casey’s sides, moving his fingertips over Casey’s ribs to make him wiggle, then hooks his thumbs in the waistband of Casey’s boxer briefs and gives them a quick pull downward. Casey inhales sharply, but steps out of his boxer briefs when Miles slides them down Casey’s legs. 

Only the faintest bit of light filters in through Miles’ window, so little that even though Casey’s about as white as the snow outside, Miles can still barely see him in the darkness. Miles leans forward, pressing the tip of his nose against Casey’s chest. He runs his hands along Casey’s sides again, then down over the sharp little points of Casey’s skinny hips, and Casey makes another sudden, sharp breath.

“You alright, Cherry?” Miles murmurs into Casey’s skin.

“Your hands are, um. Cold.” 

Miles doesn’t think his hands are really all that cold, but that’s as good an excuse as any to get the two of them under the covers. As he’s tossing his own clothes onto the floor, he hears the quiet creak of someone walking down the hall in the direction of Alicia’s bedroom, and he shakes his head at Taylor for not even making it ten minutes. 

“Come on up here, Cherry,” Miles says, moving towards his pillows and patting the bed next to him, and Casey does. “If you promise you can keep the noise down, I might even let you warm me up a little.”

Casey giggles and says, “Miles!” and then Miles does, in fact, let Casey warm him up. 

 

**Saturday, January 5th, 2013: Dayton, Ohio — Casey**

“Pug-nosed blond is cute,” Miles says, elbowing Casey. “Him and his friend.”

“Miles, I know that you know his name,” Casey sighs. Miles does this, sometimes, pretending he doesn’t remember people’s names, when Casey knows Miles remembers _everyone’s_ name. 

“Yeah, it’s ’pug-nosed blond with the nice ass’, right?”

“His name is Austin, Miles. You know him. He’s been here every week since October,” Casey answers, rolling his eyes, because _really_. Casey knows exactly who Austin is, and Miles knows Casey knows. “I’m also pretty sure you disappeared with him for at least twenty minutes at the PFLAG party.”

“That’s how I know he has a nice ass,” Miles says, grinning.

“You’re awful.”

“I know, right?” Miles’ grin just gets bigger. “He’s totally cruising you, Cherry. You should go for it.”

“Not everybody needs to, um. Fuck someone every five minutes.”

“You one of those not-everybodies? ’Cause you can tell that to my ass,” Miles says, lifting an eyebrow at Casey.

“ _Miles_!” Casey exclaims, his face getting hot.

“Seriously, Cherry, go get you some of that,” Miles says, nudging Casey. “It’s not gonna hurt you. Might help. This pining shit’s gotta stop.”

Casey sighs and looks at Miles dubiously, ignoring the comment about the pining. He’s not pining. He’s _not_. “Well, what I am supposed to do with him?”

Miles flashes those perfect teeth, predatory grin. “You’ve got a car, man. Take him on a _ride_!”

“But we drove here together. How are you—”

“You really think I’d have a problem getting home?”

“Point.”

Miles drapes his his arm across Casey’s shoulder and leans on him, and of course, Casey’s a sucker, Miles knows Casey’s a sucker, so all Casey does is let out a little annoyed sigh and allow Miles to use him as a prop for Miles’ jungle cat impersonation. Which, like everything else Miles does, is hot. Austin and his friend both stare in their direction, and Casey barely even notices, because people staring at Miles isn’t exactly new.

“Look, Cherry,” Miles says, in that reasonable tone that Casey always feels like he _should_ argue with, but never can manage to. “I’m not saying make him your boyfriend. Last thing you need is a boyfriend, ’cause there’s no way he’d ever be able to compete with, well… I’m just saying go have some fun with the guy. I _know_ you know how to have fun.”

“Yeah. I know how. To have fun, I mean.” Why Casey’s arguing, he doesn’t even know, but he _does_ know that he’s going to go over and introduce himself to Austin, because why not? Why not be like Miles? Miles is happy, he does what—and _who_ —he wants, and he never feels guilty.

“I know! Been there, done that, and you, my friend, are _fun_. Go show pug nose hot ass over there what I’m talking about,” Miles says, giving Casey a little nudge. “I’m gonna introduce myself to his buddy, and I’ll meet you back over at your place in, what, two, two and a half hours?”

“Three?” Casey offers, because unlike Miles, he’ll probably have to make at least _some_ conversation first if he’s going to make this work. All Miles ever has to do is smile at them. 

“That’s my boy,” Miles grins. “Am I the best damn wingman or what?”

“I don’t think wingmen go home with the hot guys, too,” Casey points out.

“I keep telling you, I’m a _power_ wingman. Both of us go home with hot guys.”

“You’re awful,” Casey says again, affectionately, because Miles _is_ awful and that’s one of the best things about him. 

“Yeah,” Miles grins. “Awesome, right?”

 

**Wednesday, January 9th, 2013: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Dave shoulders his backpack and rolls his eyes. It would figure that his quarter of psychology at OSU–Lima wouldn’t transfer as anything but a free elective. As much as he didn’t enjoy psychology, though, it made sense to retake it, instead of starting an entirely new class. At least he has a little bit of an advantage when it comes to mastering the material. 

That’s what he keeps telling himself, anyway. That’s what he keeps hoping. 

The second class in the English comp series shouldn’t kick his ass; calculus should be just as annoying as it was, and fundamentals of design II should, in theory, go well like it did in the fall. He’s not retaking CS, not yet; he will, eventually, since he didn’t even scrape up a ’D for done’, but at least he should avoid any further problems. 

Fewer credit hours, too, and winter and spring workouts for football are going to be demanding, but not, Dave thinks, at the level of the actual season. He needs the time to study, to try to ace all four of his classes, to try to resuscitate his GPA. 

"Oh, good," Dave hears Danny say from his left. "We’re in English together again. You can help me manage to pass!"

Dave grins at him. "Yeah, I suppose I can try to help with that. And remember, we left English together on Monday?"

"Oh." Danny sighs and shakes his head. "I thought that was— oh, well. See? I need the help!" He laughs at himself and drops into the desk near Dave. 

"We’ll schedule a time each week or something."

Danny makes a face. "Schedule a time? Special K, we live in the same dorm."

"Yeah, I know, but I have all that time I have to spend in the studio," Dave points out. What he doesn’t say is how carefully he spent the week after New Year’s Day, mapping out a tentative schedule for himself. On Monday he added office hours and when his TAs are available, because the only thing Dave is focusing on for the next four months is his grades.

Yes, he’ll go to workouts and he’ll go to practices, and most weeks, he’ll make it to club meetings, but he’s there to get his degree, not to use it as a stepping stone to a football career, and he failed miserably at progressing towards that degree. 

He failed miserably at a lot of things, and ironically, by staying in Atlanta over the break, all he did was hide from them. Hiding from having to actually tell anyone how his first semester went. Hiding from seeing Casey at all. He knows he should have done things differently with his classes the previous semester, thought he’s not exactly sure what. He knows he should have done things differently with Casey, too, but again, he’s not really sure how he should have done them. 

So he avoided everything he could, over the break. The weird lack of contact with Casey is stretching into a longer and longer stretch that Dave doesn’t know how to break. He had lashed out, hurt, and there’s no way to apologize for the comment without acknowledging he was hurt. He doesn’t want to acknowledge it, though; bad enough that he lost control enough to say it in the first place, but admitting why he said it is something he doesn’t think he’s ready for. 

"Right, the studio!" Danny says, bringing Dave out of his reverie. "Maybe we do need to schedule a time for us to do English, Special K!" 

"We’ll figure it out tonight," Dave promises. Helping Danny will probably help Dave with his own grade, anyway, and Dave needs to do as well as he possibly can. 

 

**Thursday, January 17th, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Miles**

Casey collapses on top of Miles, and even though he doesn’t weigh that much, it’s still enough to press Miles down into the Lemon’s already too-small and now too-sticky back seat. Miles bets Kurt Hummel did not have this in mind when he fixed this car up for Casey, which actually makes the experience just that much more awesome. Miles ought to get accepted to Clemson more often, if this is Casey’s idea of celebrating. 

Miles wiggles his shoulders against Casey’s head and starts to sit up, peeling himself off the admittedly messy vinyl upholstery, effectively dumping Casey into the seat next to him.  
Miles grabs a napkin from a little stack of fast food napkins tucked between the front seats and uses it to clean off his stomach and then the seat, handing another one to Casey before tugging his shirt back down from where it’s bunched around his armpits and pulling his jeans back up from where they landed around his knees. Once he’s wiped everything off to a passable level of cleanliness, he glances over at Casey, who’s refastening his jeans.

“You know, Cherry,” Miles says, as he shoves the messy napkins into a small trash bag. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate being jumped. Believe me, I appreciate the celebratory jumping! It’s just… we _could_ actually try fucking some place where we can actually take our clothes off.”

Casey giggles, the little spaced-out post-fucking laugh that he gets, like he’s been doing drugs instead of doing Miles. “But the Lemon was _here_ ,” he says. “And you were here. And _I_ was here!”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Miles agrees. “But I’ve got a bed, you know. It’s a nice bed. We’ve fucked in that bed on a few occasions, even.”

Casey giggles again and nods. “We have. In that bed,” he says. “It’s true. But the Lemon was _right here_.”

“It just seems like it’s been a lot of back seats and bathrooms lately, is all,” Miles says, with a slow, casual shrug. “You’re gonna forget what I look like naked, and that’s just a damn shame, is what that is.” He pauses, then adds, “Oh, and speaking of naked, roll up your sleeves and show me your arms.” 

Casey wrinkles up his nose, but he rolls up his sleeves and displays his arms, which are free of any new burns or scars. Miles nods once and plants a kiss on the crook of each of Casey’s elbows. 

“I don’t take anybody else to a real bed, either,” Casey offers as he rolls his sleeves back down. “Well, not, um. To _my_ real bed. Oh, and I don’t let anybody else make a mess out of the Lemon’s back seat, either!” he adds, giving Miles a little nudge with his elbow. “You’re my _special_ friend.” He starts giggling again and Miles rolls his eyes, elbowing Casey in the ribs and moving his elbow around so it tickles.

“I’m a terrible influence on you,” Miles says, proudly. “You’re like my terrible protégé. I should get some kind of award, I think. Hell, you probably should get an award, too, for being such a fast study.” 

And Casey _is_ , too. If Casey weren’t still pulling Miles into bathroom stalls, back seats, the wall behind Casey’s open bedroom door, Miles might even feel a little bit jealous about what a fast study Casey is, finding a hook-up each of the last three Saturdays, like he’s trying to make up for lost time. Or, Miles supposes, keep himself so busy that he doesn’t have to think… and that option seems a little more likely.

“Aunt Shannon and Uncle Monty are going to Dayton on Monday,” Casey says. He leans his head against the seat and closes his eyes, exhaling a long, soft sigh. “They’ll be gone all day. Come over for a real bed and we’ll celebrate Clemson some more?”

“Well, since you’re twisting my arm, I suppose I could do that,” Miles says. “You could throw a please in there, though, maybe tell me something nice about me.”

“Shut up, Miles. You know you’re the best.”

“Yeah, Cherry. It’s true. I know.”

 

**Monday, January 21st, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

Shannon and Monty leave early for Dayton, and Casey texts Miles as soon as their car disappears down the street. Miles shows up at the front door ten minutes later, and they go from Miles knocking on the door to both of them half undressed on Casey’s bed in approximately forty-five seconds. Miles pushes Casey back against the pillow and wrestles Casey out of his jeans while Casey laughs. Everything’s so much easier when Miles is there, everything unwinds for a little while, and the way Miles’ hands feel on Casey’s body is something Casey couldn’t stop if he wanted to – and he doesn’t want to.

Miles mouths down Casey’s stomach, his hands tight around Casey’s waist, and Casey can feel the warm buzz starting in the back of his brain. His whole body relaxes, and he feels heavy, almost drowsy, under Miles’ hands and lips, a million miles away from real life. The brush of Miles’ thumbs against his hips through the knit cotton of Casey’s underwear is a cold, sharp sting, but it doesn’t chase away the rush of warmth spreading through Casey’s body. He almost feels like he’s floating, like Miles is the only anchor tethering him down.

Casey doesn’t even care if he floats away anymore, it barely even matters, but Miles’ lips and tongue work their way down to the waistband of Casey’s underwear, and that’s good, too. He breathes out as loudly as he dares—he feels self-conscious about making too much noise—and closes his eyes, lets Miles ease Casey’s boxer briefs down, past Casey’s hips, forgetting. When he’s with Miles, it’s so easy to forget.

"Oh, fuck." Miles’ voice is soft, shaky, and Casey can’t think at first why that is or why Miles has stopped kissing his stomach. Casey makes a little whiny noise, tugs at Miles’ shoulder, eyes still closed.

"Miles, come on," Casey say. The warmth in his head is already starting to recede. "Miles."

"Oh, fuck," Miles repeats, and his voice catches a little this time. Casey feels the gentlest stroke of Miles’ thumb across his hip, just the barest shiver of pain, and when Miles says, "Oh Cherry, what did you do? What did you do to yourself?" Casey snaps out of the fuzzy headspace and remembers why he’s been fucking Miles in the dark, in the car, in bathrooms, behind doors, and hidden corners.

"It’s nothing," Casey insists. His liar’s voice doesn’t sound good enough, not even to his own ears. "It’s not anything. Don’t stop, it’s nothing."

"Cherry, _Casey_ , no. It’s not nothing, it’s something, it’s— fuck! Oh, goddamnit, it’s not—" Miles scrambles backwards off of Casey, and Casey opens his eyes to see Miles sitting with his knees drawn up, staring at Casey’s hips with an expression of growing horror. His skin looks ashen around his eyes, and he keeps repeating "oh, fuck" in a frighteningly quiet voice. Miles is so, so many things, but he’s never quiet.

"It’s okay," Casey assures him. "It’s fine. We’ll talk about it later, alright? Please, Miles." Casey sounds frantic. He _feels_ frantic, needs Miles to keep touching him, needs it, needs Miles to forget what he sees and touch Casey again. “Later. Miles, please? It’s okay. It’s fine.” Casey sits up, reaches for Miles’ arm, but Miles snatches it away before Casey can touch him.

"No, it’s not okay, it’s not fine, nothing is anywhere near fine," Miles says, shaking his head hard, like he’s trying to shake off what he’s seeing and can’t. “Look at yourself, Casey. Just _look_ at yourself.”

Casey looks down at his hips, both of them covered in circular burns in various states of healing, all of the burns fitting into a narrow strip over his hips that won’t show in a swimsuit or over his underwear. He wants to tell Miles that he’s looking at himself and it doesn’t look so bad, but the truth is, it does look bad. Casey’s right hip isn’t terrible, just three or four little marks, but his left is a mess, as bad as his arm ever looked, maybe worse.

“Miles,” Casey whispers, pleading. “Please. Don’t tell anybody.”

Miles won’t look Casey in the eyes, just keeps looking at Casey’s hips and then down at his own hands where they’re resting on top of his knees. The expression on Miles’ face isn’t one Casey has ever seen before, Miles’ lips pressed so tight that they’ve gone almost colorless. Miles shakes his head again, and his voice is clipped and cold when he finally answers.

“That’s the thing that’s got you worried?” Miles asks, still not looking Casey in the face. “That I might tattle on you?”

“Miles, I—” Casey starts, but Miles’ eyes snap upward, locking on Casey’s, and he abruptly stops talking.

“Doesn’t matter that you’ve been lying to me. Doesn’t matter that you’ve been hiding it from me, all the time pretending like everything’s just _fine_ , showing me your arms and making me think everything’s going just great.”

Miles is _angry_. That’s the expression on his face: anger. He’s starting to vibrate with it, and Casey involuntarily scoots back, not even trying to explain himself. Not yet. Not until he can figure out what exactly he needs to say.

“Doesn’t matter that you’re hurting yourself,” Miles continues. His fingers tighten across his knees, go white and bloodless at the knuckles, and his voice shakes. “All that matters is that you don’t get caught. Fuck how I feel, fuck that you’re _burning yourself up_ , nah, never mind any of that. As long as you don’t get caught and you can keep on doing whatever you want.”

“Miles,” Casey whispers again. His heart is pounding, he feels dizzy and on the verge of panic, and he has to figure out what to say to Miles to make him stop, to make him calm down, to keep him from telling anyone.

“No,” Miles snaps. “Don’t _Miles_ me, Casey! You’re lying to me. You’ve _been_ lying to me, and you know what? You’re trying to figure out what lie you can tell me _right now_. I can see it in your face.”

“Please,” Casey says softly. His eyes start to tear up and he’s starting to shake, too, just like Miles, the two of them sitting together on Casey’s bed, shaking and staring at each other. “Miles, please.”

“No, Casey, you don’t get to do that to people!” Now Miles is shouting, now he’s standing, grabbing his clothes and pulling them back on in angry, rough movements. “You can’t make people give a shit about you and do that to yourself. You can’t make people care about you like that and— and you know what, Cherry? You’re a liar. You’re a liar, and I’m not gonna sit here and pretend everything’s fine while you turn yourself into hamburger.” Once he’s fully dressed, he reaches for the doorknob before turning back to look expectantly at Casey. “Well? Do you have anything at all you feel like saying to me? Anything?”

Before Casey can stop himself, the words “Don’t tell David” tumble out of his mouth, and Miles flinches like he’s been hit.

“Fuck Shep,” Miles says, jerking the door open. “And fuck you, too.”

Miles slams the bedroom door behind himself, and Casey can hear him storming down the hall, slamming the front door. Casey curls up into a ball, still shaking, not letting himself cry, and chants “oh god, oh god, oh god” over the distant sound of Miles’ tires screeching as he drives away.

 

**Monday, January 21st, 2013: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Dave grunts a little as he catches the bag of mulch Ty tosses at him. “How many more bags are we going to use?” he mutters under his breath as he turns towards the distant cluster of volunteers with rakes, ready to spread more mulch. When they’d first mentioned the Day of Service for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Dave hadn’t thought much about it. Everyone on the football team should sign up, and so Dave had done as instructed. 

He’s beginning to suspect that the organizers just want the football team for their mulch-carrying abilities. 

He’s halfway between the pickup truck and his destination when his phone rings, and he sets the mulch down to check the display. A Lima area code, but not a number he recognizes, so he pulls off his work gloves and answers the call. “Hello?”

“Please don’t hang up,” Brown says, sounding surprisingly desperate.

“Brown?” Dave asks, because Brown doesn’t usually sound desperate, and he definitely doesn’t say please. Either it’s someone imitating Brown—and why would anyone do that?—or something is wrong. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I just didn’t know what else to do,” Brown says, and now Dave _knows_ something is wrong. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, and I thought… I don’t know what I thought, man, I just don’t know.”

“Slow down,” Dave says. “Tell me.” His mind can conjure up a lot of reasons for Miles to call, now that he takes a few seconds to consider it, but he doesn’t want to guess. 

Brown takes a loud breath, then he says, “It’s Casey. He’s— shit, Shep, he’s burning himself all up. He told me he wasn’t gonna do that anymore, but he lied, he has been, and it’s bad.”

Dave curls his free hand into a fist and stares at the bare trees for a few seconds before responding. “Call Coach, Brown.”

“Can you talk to him? I know you’re pissed at him right now, but can’t you—”

“You _need to call Coach_ ,” Dave interrupts. “This isn’t— it can’t be something that the adults don’t know about, Brown.” They wanted to take care of Casey, didn’t they? That was what Coach Beiste had said. And what Dave knows, now, is that he can’t do a damn thing from eight hours away. 

“He’s been hiding it. He had to have been working really hard to hide it,” Brown says. He sounds like he’s close to losing it. “He’s been showing me his arms and telling me everything’s fine, and it’s all lies on top of lies on top of lies.”

“Then why the fuck would you even _think_ about not telling Coach?” Dave asks. “You can’t screw it up, Brown.”

“I didn’t know it would be like this.” Brown’s voice is quiet, like he’s having to force the words out. 

Dave resists any urge to respond to that statement; it wouldn’t do any good, not now. “You’re going to hang up with me and call Coach,” Dave says firmly. “Right?”

Brown doesn’t answer right away, but when he does, it’s with a shaky, “Right.” He pauses again and adds, “I’m sorry, Shep.”

Dave just grunts and ends the call, putting his phone back into his pocket. He stands stock still for a long time, three or four other players passing him with their bags of mulch. He’s so far away from Casey, from Lima, both in physical distance and emotionally, too, but even without the emotional distance, there’s only so much anyone can do from so far away. 

Coach Beiste had insisted that Dave was doing too much for Casey. She’d said it was time for the adults to do their job. Instead, they had apparently just transferred the day to day _noticing_ of Casey from Dave to Brown. 

When are the adults going to start noticing things? Dave doesn’t have the answer to that question. He sighs and hoists the mulch back onto his shoulder. Casey needs someone to really help him; not Dave, not Brown, not even Coach Beiste, but someone who can work on the larger pattern. Dave can try to convince himself he doesn’t see it, but it’s there, stark, and all Dave can really do is hope that this time, something changes.

“You okay?” Ty stops beside Dave, and Dave blinks, wondering how long he’s been standing there, mulch over one shoulder. “You look really worried. The mulch isn’t that big a deal, you know.”

Dave snorts once. “Yeah. Not the mulch.”

“Ah.” Ty nods, not even asking the question. “Can’t help still worrying.”

“No,” Dave agrees. “I can’t.”

 

**Monday, January 21st, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Miles**

Miles sits on the end of his bed with Alicia’s phone in his hand, and he wonders for a minute if he’s going to puke right onto his floor, he feels that sick about what’s happening. He didn’t sign up for any of this, this wasn’t what he thought he was getting into, and yeah, Karofsky’s absolutely right that Miles needs to call Coach, but Miles isn’t sure how he’s supposed to manage that one without totally and completely losing his shit. 

There’s a soft little tap on his door, but Miles can’t even manage a “come in” at this point. Alicia pushes the door open anyway, striding in and stopping in front of Miles. “What’s going on?” she asks, her voice soft but firm.

“I had to call Shep,” Miles says. He holds up Alicia’s phone, not quite handing it to her so much as offering it in her general direction. “I needed a number he didn’t know.”

Alicia takes her phone from Miles and slides it into the back pocket of her jeans. “Okay. Why?”

Miles lets his shoulders drop. His whole body slumps, really, under the weight of all the stuff he probably needs to be doing right now. He shakes his head slowly. “Bad stuff. Some real bad stuff.”

“Hmm. You want to tell me more?” Alicia asks. “Or do you need to make more phone calls?”

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to make this phone call,” Miles confesses. “Alicia, you can’t tell anybody about this, alright? Not Foots and not Maci and not even Ma. I’ll talk to Ma myself later, you got it?”

Alicia nods slowly. “Okay. I’m going to go find the rest of that pie Ma made and heat up two slices while you make that call.”

“Thanks, Alicia. We can eat ’em up here if you want to,” Miles says. 

“Just open your door when you’re done,” Alicia instructs, heading out into the hall and pulling the door closed behind her.

“Okay. Okay, shit, I’ve gotta do this,” Miles says to himself. He pulls out his own phone and stares at it for a minute before he presses the button to dial Coach’s phone. The phone rings three times, and Miles is starting to think maybe it’ll go to voicemail, and wondering whether that’s a good or bad thing, when Coach finally answers.

“Hello?” Coach sounds like she’s in the middle of a big store, maybe.

“Coach?” Miles says. “This is Miles Brown.”

“Miles? What’s— is everything okay?”

“Well, it’s… no. No, it’s not at all,” Miles says. “Coach, there’s— it’s Casey. Stuff’s not okay with Casey.”

“Is it—” Coach breaks off and Miles can hear her take a deep breath. “Is it an acute emergency? Do I need to drive back to Lima and meet someone at a hospital? Or is it similar to the fall?”

“No, there’s no hospital, it’s not that,” Miles assures her. At least it’s not that bad, even though that’s an ‘at least’ that still doesn’t do very much to make him feel better about how bad it actually is. “You just… you need to take a look at him when you get back. You need to make him show you his hips.”

“What am I going to find, Miles?” Coach asks, the sound in the background fading.

“I didn’t know,” Miles says, having a hard time getting out the words. His voice feels like it’s catching in his throat. “I swear I didn’t know. If I’d have known, I would’ve done something, I swear, Coach. I wouldn’t just let him keep on hurting himself, alright? I swear I never would.”

“Miles,” Coach repeats. “What are we going to see?”

“Well, Coach, he’s—” Miles breath hitches a little and interrupts him. He takes a deep breath. “He’s burning himself all up, it’s bad, it’s— I _swear_ I didn’t know. I would have stopped him, Coach, I _never_ would have let him keep on like that if I knew!” His breath hitches again. “Please fix him. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

“Okay. Okay, Miles,” Coach says. “Thank you for calling me. Monty and I will take care of it.”

“Tell him I’m sorry. Tell him I had to tell you. Tell him I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you, Miles. I’ll see you at school tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay, Coach,” Miles says, and if he sniffles a little bit, it’s not like Coach is going to tell anyone about it. He ends the call and drops his phone onto his bed, falling back against his bedspread and putting his hand over his eyes. None of this is going down like he thought it would, and he’s not even sure what _this_ is. 

 

**Monday, January 21st, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

Casey has suffered through a long list of indignities in his life, but having to lower his pants and show Shannon his hips is the most indignant indignity of all of them. Casey sits at the far end of the sofa, and Shannon sits in her chair, looking very, very sad. 

“How long?” Shannon asks, then shakes her head. “No, that doesn’t really matter. Monty!” she calls into the kitchen. “You can come back in now.” She looks back at Casey and sighs. “I’ll call first thing in the morning so the doctor can at least make sure none of them are infected.”

Monty hurries into the room, looking pale and slightly red-eyed, and Casey waits until Monty sits down next to Shannon before he answers.

“They aren’t,” Casey says. “I know what that looks like.”

“That’s not reassuring, Casey,” Shannon says. “After we’re done here— well, we’ll get to that in a bit. We’ll also call Dr. Naser in the morning. I don’t know what she’s going to suggest at this point, Casey.” She frowns. “Do we need— is this because you’re eating? Or are you lying about eating again, as well?”

There’s really no point in lying anymore. Shannon has no problem putting him on a scale, interrogating his friends, and she’ll eventually come up with any answer she’s looking for. He was upset earlier with Miles, but now that he’s in the living room with Shannon and Monty staring at him with big sad eyes, Casey doesn’t really feel that upset. 

“Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t,” Casey says, with a shrug. “I’ve lost three pounds. I’ll step on the scale if you want, but that’s how much.”

“Why?” Shannon asks, looking almost bewildered. “Why do you do this, Casey?”

“Because it makes me feel better,” Casey answers, shrugging again. “Because I can? Because everything hurts anyway? So why not _that_?” It’s hard to explain, because he doesn’t understand how someone wouldn’t understand. 

Shannon looks even more confused, and she shakes her head very slowly again. “Because it hurts you?” she says, then sighs. “Go get all of your lighters and bring them here.”

Casey stands up without argument and goes back to his room, where he gathers up all the lighters from all the places he’s hidden them around the room, inside furniture, under his mattress. He leaves the one hidden inside a pair of socks, and brings the other seven into the living room and places them in Shannon’s hands before sitting down again.

“Monty and I are going to go look and make sure this is all of them. In your car, too, and we’ll be taking the keys for a couple of weeks,” Shannon says firmly. “You’ve clearly been using the freedom we’ve allowed you in order to purchase these.”

None of this is a surprise. Casey briefly considers arguing, but it didn’t get him anywhere before, and he’s just _tired_. “My keys are in my room,” he says. “And there’s a lighter in the glovebox.”

Shannon stands up and exchanges a look with Monty. “I don’t know what Dr. Naser will recommend,” Shannon says. “But whatever her recommendations, that’s what we’re going to do.”

“Okay,” Casey says, because really, what does it matter at this point? What else can they do to him? Send him somewhere else? What else can they possible take away from him that really matters that much? He’s lost his parents, his home, the first place he ever felt safe, every sense of control he ever had over his life, probably Miles, and David. What can Dr. Naser or Shannon and Monty or anyone really do to him at this point that really matters?

Shannon and Monty take over an hour to search his room and then the Lemon, finding the four remaining lighters. Shannon puts all eleven in a ziplock bag that she then locks in her car, pocketing Casey’s keys. “We’re going to watch television,” she tells Casey. “You’re welcome to join us, or you can go back to your room. It’s up to you.”

“I’ll go to my room,” Casey says, and when he stands up to go to his room, nobody stops him and nobody says anything. He can tell Shannon and Monty tried to put things back where they belong, but nothing looks right. He has no one to talk to, no one to call, so he spends the rest of the evening putting everything back where it belongs, realigning his books and his desk supplies, straightening things in their drawers. When he’s done, things still feel like they’re out of place, but he doesn’t have a single solution for that left.

 

**Friday, January 25th, 2013: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Part of Dave waits all week. He doesn’t really expect a call on Monday, but part of him does on Tuesday, or maybe Wednesday, but when no call comes by Friday after dinner, he finally acknowledges that Casey isn’t going to call. 

By now, Miles has told Coach Beiste, and by now, Coach Beiste has confronted Casey. By now, Casey has had time to choose to call Dave, and he hasn’t. 

That says everything, really. Dave isn’t Casey’s first call; he’s not even one of Casey’s calls. Dave knows that it took both of them to get to this point, but it still hurts. 

Even if Casey had called, Dave is pretty sure he’d still be worrying. The worrying doesn’t really change. If Casey can relapse, he can relapse no matter who is talking to him, and worse, from what Dave could understand from Brown, it sounds like Casey is not only relapsing but going to much greater lengths to conceal it. 

Dave worries that it’s not just burns. He worries that the burns are deeper, more serious, infected, or all of the above. Dave worries that along with the burns, Casey might be backsliding on his eating. Dave worries that if Casey has the burning and the control of his food intake both taken away from him, that he’ll find some other way to harm himself. 

Dave starts to wonder if maybe Dr. Naser wasn’t the best fit for Casey. She was presented as the only option for adolescent psychiatry at the time, and that made sense. Since being in Atlanta, though, Dave has slowly become aware of how many options there are in some places. He can’t imagine how many different adolescent psychiatrists there are just inside I-285. 

Maybe he really should have packed Casey in a box. 

Dave does a good job of not letting on how worried he is, though, or at least that’s what he thinks. On Friday, he’s had a whole week of class, studying, better grades than during the fall, workouts, and even a couple of club meetings. They’re planning a marathon of the _Indiana Jones_ movies, including the new one at Coop’s insistence. He puts on a good appearance, and he keeps thinking that until the moment during _Temple of Doom_ that he goes into the kitchen for another pop and Ty follows him. 

"You getting more Coke?" Ty asks. 

"Nah, root beer."

Ty snorts. "No, listen, you say ‘yes’, and _then_ I say ‘what kind?’ That’s when you say ‘root beer’." He shakes his head. "So what’s up with Casey?"

Dave stares at him, root beer can halfway to his mouth. "Huh?"

"C’mon, Special K. You get a phone call on Monday and then say you’re worried. You’ve done a really good job with acting like you aren’t worried, I admit, but you forget. I know you. Hell, even Danny asked me this morning if everything was okay."

"Shoulda known." Dave takes a long drink of his root beer and sets his can down. "Yeah, it’s Casey."

"Still not talking to him?"

"No," Dave admits. "It’s all fucked up, Ty. So fucked up. And I’m trying not to call Beiste and find out what’s going on or make suggestions or whatever. Because, I don’t know. Maybe they’re going to do it right this time. I called my dad." Dave sighs. "I’m just worried."

"Sounds like _you_ need a therapist," Ty says. "Seriously! They’re all the time telling us to use the Counseling Center. It couldn’t hurt, right?" 

Dave stops and stares at Ty. He hasn’t seen a therapist in nearly a year, putting it off in favor of one thing or another, but Ty’s right. "You’re right. You’re right," Dave admits. 

"You can’t do your boy any favors if you’re not a hundred percent yourself," Ty says solemnly. 

"He’s— he’s not mine," Dave points out, though it still hurts to say the words. 

"Whatever you say," Ty agrees, clearly not listening to Dave at all. "Make an appointment on Monday, Special K."

"Yeah. I will," Dave says, picking his can of root beer back up. Maybe Ty’s right. He needs to be at a hundred percent. He’s not giving up on Casey, not in any sense of the words. 

 

**Sunday, January 27th, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Miles**

Miles doesn’t hear from Casey the rest of that Monday, and that’s definitely for the best, because he’s too angry to not say something he’ll regret later, and he’s too tired to really ignore him like he oughta be ignored. Miles is too angry and too _hurt_ , because he knows Casey hides stuff and keeps stuff secret from people, but he didn’t think Casey would keep it from _him_ , not after he promised.

 _I’m sorry Miles_ is the first text Miles gets, before school on Tuesday. He tells himself he’s not really looking for Casey’s car in the parking lot, it’s just so yellow that it’s hard to miss, and when it’s not there, the lack of yellow is notable. The parking lot has a notable lack of yellow, and Miles pretends like he doesn’t care whether or not some self-destructive liar comes to school or not. Except, of course, he does care.

Casey texts _I’m so sorry_ during lunch period. He’s not in the cafeteria, not that Miles is looking – whatever, so Miles looks for him, but it’s just so he can avoid him. Rick says he saw Casey going into a classroom, but nobody’s talked to him.

After school, the text says _Going to see Dr. Naser_ and a few hours later, the next text says _Talking about sending me someplace_ , and Miles tries to study or read or do anything other than look at his phone until it chirps at him again and announces _They decided no, I’m doing some group instead_. Even though Casey is a liar, and Miles isn’t speaking to him ever again, and absolutely doesn’t miss him already, he still breathes a sigh of relief… then he deletes all the texts.

On Wednesday, Miles gets another _I’m sorry_ text, Casey’s car still isn’t parked at school, Casey still doesn’t sit with them at lunch, and after school, Miles turns off the ringer on his phone and goes over to Rick’s house, where the two of them play videogames for almost four hours. When he turns his phone back on, he has three texts from Casey, all of them about the group thing he’s attending instead of being sent away somewhere.

_This group is mostly girls and one of them has blue hair_

_Austin from the center is at this group, isn’t that weird_

_I don’t think I like this group_

Miles snorts at the last one, because of course Casey doesn’t like it. Casey doesn’t like much of anything, but especially not people expecting him to talk about anything important, like himself, like why he might do something to _hurt_ himself. Miles doesn’t respond to the texts, but he doesn’t delete them, at least.

On Thursday, Miles’ day starts with another apology text, only this time it’s followed up with an _I miss you_ text, and damn if that doesn’t make Miles angry all over again. He keeps his phone off all day, because it’s Casey’s own fault if he misses Miles. Miles deletes the two texts from Casey without reading them, because Miles doesn’t miss liars, even when he does.

By Friday, Miles is really starting to feel the absence of Casey in his life, and it’s not just the lack of being pulled by his jacket into bathroom stalls or janitor’s closets… though it’s a _little_ bit that. Rick’s a good guy, sister-dating notwithstanding, but there’s only so far Miles can get into a conversation with him before he has to start shaking his head at all the myriad things that confuse Rick, that Rick has utterly mixed up, or that Rick has just never heard of. The other guys from the football team are all pretty cool, some of them even come into PFLAG sometimes, but they aren’t guys that Miles really feels comfortable talking about _guys_ with. He ends up hanging out with Rick, Alicia, Taylor, and Maci, feeling like the biggest damn fifth wheel ever. When Casey texts him _I’m still sorry_ at around bedtime, Miles almost texts him back.

On Saturday, Miles drives himself to the center early and stays all day. Between the hours of nine and five, Miles fucks three different guys: Gavin on the futon at Gavin’s older brother’s place ten miles away, Michael in the back of Michael’s green SUV, and then a short, cute one whose name Miles doesn’t even bother to ask up against the sink in the center’s single stall handicap bathroom. By number three, even April looks impressed, but she seems to have the sense, for once, not to say something. As he’s driving home, Miles thinks maybe, just maybe, he’s gotten Casey out of his head, gotten over wanting him, that it was just a proximity thing, it was convenient for both of them, that’s all it was.

Then his phone chirps at him— _I hope you made a new friend today_ —and Miles chucks his phone onto the passenger side floorboard. After he gets home and eats dinner and takes a shower, he calls Coach to ask if maybe she’d let him pick Casey up for the flower shop in the morning.

“Straight there, straight back,” Coach tells him, not that she even _has_ to tell him that, and she says he can bring Casey a pop _from_ a gas station, but he’s absolutely not to stop at one once Casey’s in the car.

“You got it, Coach,” Miles promises her. “And don’t tell him I’m coming to get him. I’m still mad at him and I might just change my mind.” Coach agrees and that’s the note Miles decides to end the night on, because he just can’t handle any more texts tonight.

Miles shows up at the Desmonds’ place at eight-thirty, and Mr. Desmond lets him in with what looks like a sympathetic smile and a pat on the shoulder. Miles finds Casey sitting at the kitchen table, tearing what looks like a piece of cheese toast into the tiniest possible bites and eating them slowly, a big scowl on his face – and dammit, Miles is _not_ going to forgive him just because his scowl is cute. Nope, just nope.

Casey looks up from his toast-torture, and when his eyes land on Miles, his whole face lights up. “Miles!” Casey says, dropping his toast bits and standing up. “You’re here!”

“Yeah, well,” Miles says. “My folks are paying you to be there, so…”

“Miles.” Casey starts to take a step in Miles’ direction, then seems to stop himself. “Miles, I’m—”

“Finish your cheese toast so I’m not late,” Miles says, and Casey sits right down and finishes his torn up cheese toast bites in about two minutes, which is the fastest Miles has ever seen him eat anything, including candy. They don’t talk on the way to the car, or even after they’re sitting in the car, but Miles sets a Code Red Mountain Dew in the cup holder in front of Casey before he backs out of the driveway.

Ms. Betty waves at them like she always does, then Miles explains what they’re working on like he always does, and he tries to ignore the big, hopeful eyes that keep tracking him back and forth across the workroom. He shoves a box of Peruvian lilies at Casey and says, “Here, sort these by color,” and Casey does, though mostly what Casey does is watch Miles.

After a half hour or so has passed, with neither one of them saying anything, Miles says, without looking at Casey, “I’m so mad at you, Cherry, you just can’t even understand how mad I am at you right now.”

“I know,” Casey answers him softly.

“No, you _don’t_ know. You lied to me. You didn’t even care that you lied to me. You’ve been hurting yourself this whole time, and hiding it from me, and I feel like an idiot for not noticing, and you don’t even _care_.”

“I do,” Casey says. “I do care.”

“Goddamnit, Cherry, just stop saying whatever old thing it is you think I wanna hear right now,” Miles says, slamming down a handful of flowers. The impact crushes them and sends petals exploding all over the table, and Miles couldn’t give less of a fuck. “I don’t know why I even picked you up today! That’s all you do, tell people whatever they want to hear, so they’ll leave you alone to do whatever horrible stuff you want to yourself, but I’ll tell you what, Casey O’Brien, I’m not watching you burn yourself down anymore than I’m watching you starve yourself to death.”

“Miles.”

“No, you don’t fucking _Miles_ me,” Miles says, raising his voice, and he steps forward so he’s right in front of Casey, shouting down into his face. “I don’t care how much I miss you.”

“Miles,” Casey repeats.

“No! I don’t care how much I miss you, and I don’t care how much I want you,” Miles insists. “None of that matters.”

“ _Miles_ ,” Casey says again, catching the hem of Miles’ shirt between his fingers and looking up at Miles, his eyes wide, his breathing a little too fast for two guys working at a table full of flowers. “I’m sorry.”

“No you’re not,” Miles says. He runs the backs of his fingers down Casey’s arm. “You always say that, but I don’t think you’re sorry about any of the shit you do.” He twists his fingers in the front of Casey’s shirt and pulls him forward. “You just keep on doing it. And I’m the idiot that keeps on letting you do it, which just shows that I’m a crazy person, surrounded by crazy people.”

“I missed you,” Casey says, and when he slips his arms around Miles, sliding one hand along the skin on Miles’ back, Miles knows he’s done for.

“I’m still mad at you,” Miles says. “And I’m worried about you, and I’m not gonna believe a single thing you tell me ever again that I can’t check with my own eyes.” He tightens his grip on the front of Casey’s shirt, puts his other arm around him.

“Okay,” Casey says. “That’s okay.”

“Nothing good can come from this,” Miles says, and even though that’s absolutely, one hundred percent, unarguably true, he kisses Casey anyway.


	9. February 2013

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been a year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warnings: Illegal drug use, references to self-harm, references to prior suicide attempt(s)**

**Wednesday, February 6th, 2013: Dayton, Ohio — Casey**

Given the choice between attending group and being shipped off somewhere, Casey obviously would pick group, but that doesn’t mean he likes it or thinks it’s doing him any good. It doesn’t mean he enjoys spending his Wednesday evenings sitting in a meeting room in some therapy place’s office in Dayton, listening to the woman who runs group trying to get everybody to talk about their feelings and experiences. Casey’s already heard a little too much about some people’s feelings and experiences, and he doesn’t have any intention to talk about his own.

The group make-up is about the same as it was the last two weeks: six or seven girls, Austin, a fat boy who cries every time someone shares their feelings or experiences, and Casey. Officially, the group is called Self-Harm Survivors, but everybody there calls it SHS or ‘Shush’. Casey _wishes_ they’d shush, because this is the third week in a row that he’s had to hear the same stories and then hear the fat boy crying about them.

Even though Austin isn't exactly a friend—except in the Miles Brown ‘new friend’ sense—Casey does at least enjoy having a familiar face sitting across the circle from him, especially when one of the girls starts going on and on about her parents' divorce and how it led to her scratching the word 'alone' in her leg with the point of a steak knife. That sets the fat boy off again, because apparently every tragedy may as well be his own personal tragedy. In the middle of divorcing-parents-girl talking about her dad's new girlfriend and fat boy's sort of gaspy sobs, Casey looks across at Austin and rolls his eyes. Austin flashes a swift smile at Casey and rolls his eyes right back, and suddenly Casey's outlook on the rest of group is greatly improved. If he has to suffer through this, he can at least appreciate the company of a fellow sufferer.

The tone of group vacillates between teen-girl-confessional and full-on twelve step program, which might be funny if Casey weren’t stuck there for an hour every Wednesday from now until who even knows when, with no means of escape. Tonight is twelve-steppier than usual, and the woman that runs the group apparently wants them to write letters to people that they’ve ‘hurt or manipulated through the course of their self-harm’. That sounds like a time-intensive process; if Casey gets started down a road of everybody whose lives he’s messed up through his presence in them, he’s going to be writing a lot of letters.

Group officially ends after forty-five minutes, but everyone stays for another fifteen to socialize, which really means all those girls clump together, the fat boy sits by himself and blows his nose, and Casey and Austin lean against a wall while Austin tries to explain the difference between lacrosse and field hockey, neither of which Casey particularly cares about. He smiles and nods anyway, because Austin—along with being all those other things Miles said about him—is also _really_ nice.

Austin is just starting off on a tangent that seems to be about the cost of equipment when the group of girls approach Casey and Austin as a mass. Divorce-girl must be the spokesperson, because she looks at Casey and says, "So you don't really talk."

Casey shrugs. "Nothing to, um. Say, I guess."

"Usually we get the whole sordid life story by the second or third meeting," explains the blue-haired girl Casey sort of met at his first group – Katelyn or Katie, maybe? "Jonathan spilled ten minutes into his first time," she adds, subtly gesturing at the fat boy, who has stopped blowing his nose but still seems in danger of tears at the first sign of drama. "He doesn't really belong here, though."

"So what do you use?" divorce-girl blurts over blue-hair's last few words.

Casey exchanges a look with Austin, who perhaps has a better understanding of group lingo and whether or not this is a standard question, but Austin just shrugs and raises one hand in an apologetic-looking wave of defeat. Casey looks back at divorce-girl and asks, "Use?"

"Yeah, like X-Acto, razor blades, what?" divorce-girl presses. While she talks, she smacks her gum loud enough for Casey to hear it. "Steak knife for me, which… Dramatic, right? But doesn’t really cut that deep. Krista and Stacy use straight razors," two of the other girls nod, "Brandy's kitchen knives. Alexandra used glass from a broken family picture, that's like _super_ -dramatic, I can't even. Austin, letter opener?"

"Boy Scout pocket knife," Austin answers. "I quit during Webelos. Grady was the letter opener."

"Right," divorce-girl continues. "And Kate's our X-Acto–wielding freak. So, you?"

That was a significant barrage of information, but Casey at least understands the context of the question now, and he feels strangely comfortable in this little cluster of people who all understand about _that_ in a way that explaining alone can't achieve. Even divorce-girl’s flippancy about all of it is somehow reassuring.

“Oh," Casey says. "Um. Cigarettes, but my aunt and uncle don't smoke, so now it's lighters."

Casey hears at least one small gasp, maybe two, and divorce-girl takes a half-step backwards, away from Casey. "Oh. Oh, I didn't know," she says, almost like she’s apologizing, which doesn't make any sense. Of course she didn't know; he hasn't talked about it, has barely ever said out loud that he does _that_ before now, so how could she know?

The other girls all make variations on some incomprehensible girl facial expression, but then group is over for real, and Casey and Austin walk out to the parking lot for their rides. Before Austin climbs into the passenger seat of a white SUV, he calls out, "See you next week, Casey. And tell Miles Brown I said hey."

Casey calls back, "Definitely," though he may or may not. Miles doesn't really work hard—or at all—to stay actual friends with his new friends, and Casey can see some merit in that. A _lot_ of merit in it, actually. If new friends turn into real friends, things could get too complicated on the whole sex-and-feelings front, and the whole point of sex is to not think about how he’s feeling, or even feel it at all for a while. Miles is so good at that… and that’s why it’s okay for the rules to be different with Miles. 

 

**Thursday, February 7th, 2013: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

"You coming back around tonight?" Jessie asks Dave halfway through class. 

"Don't have much choice, do I?" Dave says, half-grinning. "Won't we all be around tonight?"

"Well, project's not due until midnight tomorrow," Kyle says from Dave's other side. "So, no. You know Kim's going to be here right up until the deadline tomorrow."

"That is so true!" Kim calls from a few aisles over. "I have a meeting tonight. I'm going to miss out on the pizza, aren't I?"

"Yep," Dave answers for them. "We'll have to eat more supreme slices than usual. It's a terrible tragedy." 

"Maybe Kim shouldn't come more often," Kyle teases, and Kim sticks her tongue out at him. 

"I'll find out if Zoe or Dylan want in," Jessie offers. "I can't believe those idiots signed up for the wrong section. And not even the same wrong section. We're going to have to hold their hands when we register for the fall." Jessie pulls out her phone, shaking her head. 

"Registering is confusing," Dave says, completely serious. "You can't fault them for— oh, screw it, who am I kidding. Blame them."

Kyle laughs. "I think they've already been punished, though. Being away from us for an entire semester? That's a real downer."

"We're awesome people to be around when you're stuck inside the same building for hours each week," Jessie agrees. "We also provide a great place to commiserate over the requirements imposed upon us by the demons of calculus."

"Demons?" Dave asks, raising an eyebrow. 

"I like to think they can be exorcised or vanquished," Jessie explains. "If they're calculus gods, what hope do we mere mortals have?"

"It's true," Kim calls. "The demons of calculus have found a source of food here at Tech or something."

"It's not a shaft," Kyle says soberly. "It's actually a hellmouth."

"That actually would explain _so much_ about this school," Jessie agrees. "Why didn't anyone warn us? Plenty of people from my high school have come here. Why didn't they tell me?"

"I would have missed the warning even if someone managed to get it to you," Dave says. "I don't know if anyone from my high school has _ever_ come here before, much less recently."

"It should be a public service announcement," Kyle says. "Warning: Georgia Tech will chew you up and spit you out. Especially architecture."

 

**Wednesday, February 13th, 2013: Dayton, Ohio — Casey**

Group is weirder than usual. Divorce-girl and some of the other girls shoot enigmatic looks at Casey, and while he doesn't understand how girl-brains work under the best of circumstances, he's still pretty sure this is past normal and into the realm of strange. He tries to ignore them and pay attention to the fat boy—Jonathan—crying his way through a recounting of a badly botched suicide attempt, and how afterward his mother had shoved him into every therapy group in the area, even if it didn't really fit.

Jonathan isn't like Casey or Austin or those girls. He doesn't want to hurt himself; he's just lonely and very, very sad, and Casey feels guilty for mentally mocking him for crying. It's not like Casey never cries, though he doesn't do it in the middle of group. He doesn't do anything in the middle of group but sit and exchange eyerolls with Austin.

If he keeps going like he's supposed to, and if he keeps going to his therapy sessions with Dr. Naser and acting like they're having some sort of breakthrough and he's seeing all the amazing possibilities of each new day, Shannon might even let him have the Lemon back before much longer. He'll have to find another hiding place for just in case—it's always _just in case_ —but at least the option will be there, and that possibility makes him feel a little calmer, a little safer.

Then somehow the conversation shifts to school sports, and a couple of the girls mention softball or cheerleading, Austin talks about soccer and lacrosse, and Casey realizes he's actually voluntarily speaking out loud during group to confess that he's a swimmer, and a decently good one. Blue-hair girls perks up like she might say something, but the topic digresses to school sports they've gone to _watch_ , and Casey shocks himself and the woman who runs group by launching into a description of the state championship last year and how amazing his friend is at football.

It's the longest Casey's talked about David in weeks, and he does it without saying David’s name even once. He’s stopped saying David’s name altogether, in fact, doesn’t discuss him with Miles, changes the subject when Dr. Naser tries to bring him up. He misses David too much, and the passing time doesn’t make it hurt any less.

After the meeting, divorce-girl and her friends give Casey a wide berth, which is fine, because he isn’t sure he’s up for another round of interrogation. Casey stays in his chair and Austin walks over and drops into the seat next to him.

“You talked,” Austin says. “That’s cool.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Casey says, with a small shrug. “I didn’t mean to talk that much.”

“Nah, it was good. Talking’s the whole point of group. It’s cool.” Austin uses his foot to drag another chair in front of himself, then he props up both his feet. “So you’re a swimmer, huh?”

“Yes. My season didn’t start so great because of, um. Things.” Casey waves his fingers slightly, to indicate all the possible things that could have affected his swim season. “I won two of my last four races, though, and I placed in the other two. Though… I don’t know. I think maybe that says more about how bad _they_ were than how good I am.”

“I say that about our lacrosse team all the time,” Austin says. “Western Ohio’s not a hotbed of lacrosse or anything, so I’m not sure how much it says about our team that we keeping winning.”

Casey nods, but doesn’t have anything to say to that, so the two of them sit there in a silence that borders on awkward but doesn’t quite tip over the edge into uncomfortable. When the rest of the hour is up, they stand and gather up their coats, heading for the exit. As they’re walking through the double doors of the therapist’s office, Austin turns to Casey and asks, “So, next week, you want to see if you can come over to my place for a while after?”

Shannon would probably be thrilled that Casey’s made a friend at group, but Casey has rules for this sort of thing, and the rules say no repeats. It’s better that way, safer.

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” Casey says. He tries to sound sorrier than he feels, because he doesn’t actually feel particularly sorry.

“It’s because you’re with Miles Brown,” Austin says matter-of-factly, and Casey can’t help it. He bursts out laughing.

“Oh! No, I’m not _with_ Miles,” Casey says, after he calms down a little. Austin looks slightly confused, so Casey explains, “Nobody’s _with_ Miles. Miles is just… he’s Miles. Everybody gets a little bit of him, but nobody really belongs to Miles.”

“Ohhhh, okay,” Austin says. “I just thought, you know, I’d heard some stuff. And then you were saying all that stuff about your friend who plays football in there, and it didn’t sound like just a _friend_ who plays football.” He shrugs. “It’s cool.”

“Yeah. Not, um. Not Miles,” Casey says softly. Just then, Shannon’s car pulls up, and it’s a tremendous relief to not have to explain anything further.

 

**Wednesday, February 13th, 2013: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

As much as Dave appreciates the scholarship and enjoys the playing, he has to admit that spring semester is a lot easier to manage. It has to help, he knows, that he's taking fewer hours, but he still resolves to enjoy the slightly less intense pace while it lasts. 

He stretches and stands up from his desk, waving at Ty and Coop as he leaves the dorm, and then heads into the middle of campus for the night's Pride Alliance meeting. There haven't been any new faces in a few weeks, and Dave slips in just a few moments before the official business portion of the meeting starts. 

Dave has done his best not to put it out there that he's on the football team, when he's doing anything else on campus. It took a few months before anyone else doing architecture realized, and he's pretty sure most of Pride Alliance still hasn't made the connection. There's no reason for them to connect Dave with the football team, and he's not so socially involved that there's a pattern to anything he might miss because of a conflict with football. 

A few of them have either realized it or know because Dave's told them, but they understand Dave's in a strange position. If someone asks him, he's not going to baldly lie, which means that some people know. He's told a few people. He's not what anyone would call _out_ either, though, so Dave figures maybe that he's what people mean when they talk about 'open secrets'. 

When everyone starts chattering and getting snacks, Dave realizes that he was wrong, and there are a couple of people he doesn't recognize. One of them seems to be making the rounds, introducing himself to a lot of the freshmen, and he comes up to Dave just as he sits back down with a plate of snacks. 

"Hey, I don't think we've met," the guy says, extending his hand for Dave to shake. "I'm Brandon. I was co-oping last semester and it's taken me a couple of weeks to drop back into the routine."

"Dave," Dave replies with a nod. "Freshman, as you seem to have figured out." 

"I was that obvious?" Brandon says, pretending to be upset. "Yeah, thought I'd find all of you and say 'hi' since I missed out on everything in the fall. My co-op job's in DC, so no weekend visits, even." He straightens. "Sorry, I run on sometimes. Anyway, nice to meet you, Dave."

"Yeah, you too," Dave nods. He talks to a few of the other people he regularly talks to, including one guy, Caleb, who likes to discuss football, other sports, and all the issues surrounding it. Dave would get tired of it, except that he never sees Caleb except at Pride Alliance meetings. It's an interesting topic, but Dave's already starting to feel like they're beating it to death. 

"…so I think I'm really getting recognized now, at least on the forums at Outsports," Caleb says as Dave tunes back in. "Shit, I have to go finish a lab and turn it in. So, Dave. Are you busy Friday night?"

"Friday?" Dave says blankly. "I'm not sure."

"I actually really want to see the new Bruce Willis," Caleb says. "How about it? You and me? It's the day _after_ Valentine's, so no, you know. Pressure."

Dave's rather proud of himself that his jaw doesn't drop as he realize what Caleb means. A date. He wants to take Dave on a date to see a Bruce Willis film – and probably to talk more about his online persona on his gay sports websites, if Dave's being brutally honest. Dave wonders if Caleb is making it up about the Bruce Willis film, because he thinks Dave would want to see it. 

"Oh," Dave manages at last. "Yeah, I don't think that's a great idea." He winces a little and shakes his head. "Uh, thanks for, you know. The thought." 

To his credit, Caleb recovers quickly, smiling at Dave. "No, no problem, no big deal. I'm just— I'll see you next meeting."

"Yeah, see you," Dave echoes. He winces again as Caleb turns the other way, and looks around the room almost desperately, trying to judge if he should just escape now. "Awkward," he mutters under his breath, picking up another can of pop and mentally smirking at Ty, even if Ty won't ever know. 

"Is Caleb still boring people about his online sports exploits?" Brandon asks from beside Dave.

"Yeah. I think he wanted me for some field research, and." Dave shrugs. "Wasn't really looking for that. Every time I talk to him it's the same topic."

"Yeah, Caleb has a one-track mind. It took me six months to find out his major. Which is HTS, by the way. Nothing wrong with HTS, I mean," Brandon says hurriedly, and Dave laughs. 

"No, I hear you. My major's architecture, so."

Brandon whistles. "Surprised you find time to come to meetings." He grins. "Mine's AE, so I have a little more free time. Just, you know. Not as much as the HTS majors."

"Right," Dave agrees. "My dormmates are doing business, econ, and… actually, I'm still not sure what Danny's doing. Passing English, at least, so that's something."

Brandon grins. "Yeah, D for done, right?" He looks at his watch and frowns. "I've got to go meet a friend, but hey, you want to grab some coffee sometime? What part of campus are you on?"

"North Avenue South," Dave answers, still feeling ridiculous all these months later. 

"Oh, nice. Have you been down to the Urban Grind? It's crowded at night, but it's kind of nice during the day."

"No, that sounds cool," Dave says. 

"Tomorrow? I'm free after 11."

"I could do around 1," Dave says after a quick look at his phone.

"Awesome. See you tomorrow, then, Dave."

"Yeah, nice to meet you." Dave nods once and puts a reminder in his phone, talking to a few more people before he heads back over to his dorm. It could be interesting to have another friend that gets all the aspects of his life. Try as his dormmates might, they're still coming at it from the football angle, not the gay angle or the damn hard major angle. 

 

**Saturday, February 16th, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Rick**

Taylor is the coolest dude ever and he has the best ideas, Rick’s pretty sure. All of them sitting out on the back porch of Alicia and Brown’s house in the snow, while their parents are off having one of their ‘creepy semi-annual sexcapades’ as Brown calls it, and smoking up together is definitely the best idea. 

Rick breathes out a big plume of smoke, then he coughs, then he hands the joint back to Taylor. “Where’d you get this, anyway?” he asks.

Taylor grins and inhales, waiting to answer until after he exhales the smoke. “My dad. I took about half the bag in his desk. Hopefully he’ll just think he misremembered how much he had.”

“Your parents are _so cool_ ,” Maci says, then she starts up giggling and keeps on doing it until she falls over onto her side in the snow on the porch. 

Brown leans over and takes the joint from Taylor, takes a hit from it but doesn’t hand it off to anybody right away. Casey makes like he’s planning on putting his hand out for it, but Brown exhales his smoke like a grumpy dragon and says, “No way,” and then takes another big hit before passing it to Rick. Once he’s handed it off, he grabs Casey by the front of his jacket and pulls him over like he’s going to kiss him or something, but instead he shotguns the smoke into Casey’s mouth.

Rick shakes his head and takes a hit before handing it off to Alicia while he coughs out the smoke. “You sure this isn’t mixed with y’all’s yard clippings?” Rick asks Taylor. 

“Rick, just like last time, no one’s had yard clippings in months,” Taylor says with a laugh, lighting a second joint, and takes a hit before passing it to Maci. “You just need more practice.”

“Don’t breathe so fast, Daniel,” Alicia says, passing the joint back to Rick. 

“It dries out my mouth,” Rick insists. “My mouth is dry, is what it is. It’s that… mouth thing.”

“Well, this has been a real nice chit-chat in below freezing temperatures,” Brown says, “but I think we’re going back inside now. You kids try not to freeze to death.” He takes Casey by the wrist and starts to drag him towards the back door. 

“Keep it down, Miles,” Alicia says with a great big sigh. “There’s a reason Ma and Dad _leave_. So we don’t have to hear it.”

“Alicia, I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” Brown say, all huffy, but Casey looks like maybe he _does_ know, because he looks a little bit sorry. Not a lot sorry, though. The two of them go back into the house and Rick hands the joint back over to Alicia.

“Poor Brown. You give him a real hard time, Alicia,” Rick says. He shakes his head sadly, and then he keeps on shaking it, because it feels sorta nice. “Poor ol’ Brown.”

“I just don’t want to hear it,” Alicia insists, gesturing with her whole arms. “My parents leave to have noisy sex, and on the night I definitely don’t have to hear them, I don’t want to hear my brother fucking!”

“There’s fucking?” Rick asks, still shaking his head a little. “When did that happen? Did I miss something?”

“How much have you been smoking?” Taylor laughs. “Yeah, Rick, you must’ve missed something, for sure.”

Maci’s still lying on the snow, blowing little puffs of smoke up in the air, and she starts giggling again. “They’re just so cute! Don’t you think they’re so cute? They’re so cute!”

“They are not that cute.” Alicia shakes her head very slowly. “They aren’t. They think they’re sneaky. And they think they’re so special, but they’re not. They’re not cute at all.”

“Nah, Alicia, I think Maci might be right. They might be cute,” Rick says. He takes the joint back from Alicia and has to stop shaking his head so he can smoke. After he takes a hit and then exhales, he continues, “But I didn’t think they were fucking. I just thought they were like boyfriends or something.”

“It’s really not fair,” Taylor complains. “They have a whole extra dick while they’re fucking. It’s not fair at all.” Maci giggles some more and wallows around in the snow, and Alicia looks a little green around the edges, not that Rick can blame her.

“I don’t believe I’m comfortable with this particular conversational topic,” Rick announces. He stubs out the burnt-up end of the joint on the snow. “And on that note, let’s never talk about Brown fucking again.”

“I second that,” Alicia says, nodding. “Ooh, if my brother’s busy, there’s no one to _remind_ us where to sleep.” She looks over at Maci and grins. 

“Well,” Rick says, “then I think it’s great those two crazy kids are working things out.”

 

**Wednesday, February 20th, 2013: Dayton, Ohio — Casey**

Two things happen during group this week: Jonathan misses the meeting and Casey talks about _Monday_. Sort of. The blue-haired girl talks about the three times she went to the E.R. for cutting too deep, and how one time she got held for the mandatory 72 hour observation, and Casey blurts out, “Me, too!” like it’s some kind of weird bonding experience. It might even be, a little bit, because the blue-hair girl looks at him appraisingly and then nods.

Casey slumps down in his chair, embarrassed at himself for saying it, though if there were ever a day for blurting about it, this would be the day. The significance of the date hangs over him like a cloud, and even though he wrote and mailed a bunch of those twelve-steppy letters, there’s still one he couldn’t write. What is he supposed to say that doesn’t come out sounding like all the things he knows he’s not supposed to say? How could he apologize or explain for Monday, for before-Monday and after-Monday, for November and December?

This time after group, the group of girls still steers clear of Casey, but the blue-haired girl flings herself into the seat next to Casey’s, the one on the opposite side of where Austin’s sitting and talking about… something soccer-related, Casey’s not even entirely sure what. She sits cross-legged in the chair with her feet tucked under her, and when she talks, it’s a little bit too loud, like she wants the rest of group to hear her.

“I’ve decided we should hang out sometime,” the blue-haired girl announces, and Casey involuntarily leans away from her. “We have a pool. It’s heated. You should come over and swim some time. I know you swim.”

“Um.” Casey looks over at Austin for some kind of evacuation plan, but Austin doesn’t seem to realize anything’s amiss. Casey hasn’t ever stopped to develop a response to a girl asking him to go do things, because he honestly never thought it would come up. “I’m not… I mean, I don’t think that—”

“Oh, for god’s sake,” blue-haired girl interrupts with a snort. “I’m not hitting on you, stupid. I know you’re gay as a parade.” She shakes her head. “Seriously, do you not have any social skills at _all_?”

“I have social skills!” Casey insists. “I do!”

“Yeeeeah, pretty sure you don’t, actually,” blue-haired girl says, and on the other side of Casey, Austin seems to stifle a laugh. “Anyway, I was just trying to be _nice_. I know you don’t have a lot of friends here.”

Casey scowls at her, because he doesn’t _need_ a lot of friends here. It’s not like he comes here for fun and relaxation. “I’m fine. I don’t care if a bunch of girls like me or not.”

“Wow,” blue-haired girls says flatly. “You’re kind of a dick. You should maybe work on that, along with the not freaking people out thing.”

“I don’t freak people out,” Casey says.

“You _totally_ freak people out,” she argues. “It’s not about them not liking you. They’d probably like you just fine if you weren’t such a damn freak.”

“You’re the one who’s the freak,” Casey snaps. “That one girl even said it.”

“Yeah, but she’ll say it in front of me. _You_ they don’t even say it in front of.”

Casey wants to fire back a retort, but he can’t think of anything to say to that, so he just says, “Oh.”

“Yeah,” blue-haired girl says. Neither one of them says anything for a few beats, and the blue-haired girl seems to maybe realize Casey _isn’t_ going to say anything else. She sighs and says, “Look. They’re just cutters, you know? All of us cut. Me worse than the rest of them, and they think I’m kind of a freak, too, but it’s still all just variations on the same thing. It’s just cutting. But, Casey… you burn yourself. You _burn_ yourself. And you talk about it like it’s a perfectly normal thing to do. That’s like some fucked-up sociopath Dexter shit. They’re _scared_ of you.”

Casey recoils, his eyes darting over to the cluster of girls on the other side of the room, who really do, now that blue-hair has pointed it out, look a little scared. Of him. Scared of _him_. A room full of people who cut themselves, and it’s _Casey_ that scares them.

“Look, I don’t know your story or anything,” the blue-haired girl says a little more gently. “’Cause you don’t talk about it. Maybe you didn’t realize how messed up all that stuff sounds to other people, I don’t even know, but here’s some useful self-help crap from one freak to another: just go ahead and accept that you’re way more fucked up than you think you are.” She looks over at the wall clock; the hour for group is up. She stands up and looks down at Casey. “But seriously, you should come over and swim some time, even if you are a dick who scares people.”

 

**Wednesday, February 20th, 2013: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Dave rolls his eyes and checks his calendar again before submitting the confirmation that, sure, he’ll be a human test subject for one of the psych grad students in exchange for ten extra credit points in his psychology class. The experiment he did two weeks ago only ended up taking about twenty minutes, and while his grade seems fine for now, Dave knows it’s still early in the semester. 

His phone starts to ring, and he reaches for it with one hand while he closes out the psychology website with his other hand. “Hello?”

“Hi.” Casey sounds tentative and nervous.

“Case.” Dave can’t keep the surprise from his voice, though he tries to temper it. “Hi.”

“Are you, um. Am I interrupting… things?”

“No.” Dave shakes his head, even though Casey can’t see him. He’s been putting off an English paper all week and all day, and before he can think about it, he starts telling Casey about it. “I’m just procrastinating writing about _1984_. The book, I mean. Not the year.”

“Propaganda. Oh, and um, the dangers of substituting technology for human interaction.” Casey pauses and then says, “Those are themes.”

“That probably apply to both the book and the year, come to think of it,” Dave says. “You think I should write about that?”

“Oh, no, I mean. I don’t know what they’d want. At, um. At college. So, probably whatever you were already going to write is better than that.”

Dave laughs for a moment. “Why do you think I was putting off writing?” 

Casey echoes Dave’s laugh. “Yeah. Probably propaganda, then.”

“There’s probably a good punchline there, too, if I could think of it,” Dave adds, then falls silent, not sure what to say. He stares at the screen of his computer, absently clicking on different things, hoping something comes to his mind. 

“So, um. A girl with blue hair called me a freak today.”

That definitely wasn’t what Dave was expecting, and he blinks twice. “Okay? Comparatively or…?” Dave knows he sounds utterly confused, but there’s not a socially-expected answer to a statement like that, and he definitely doesn’t know what to say to Casey in response, because ‘socially-expected’ isn’t really his baseline for Casey—it’s too formal, too distant, but maybe—hell, Dave doesn’t know where they are. He glances at the computer again and realizes he’s brought up a calendar, the day’s date highlighted, and he catches his breath. 

Right. The twentieth.

“I don’t think she has any room to call _me_ a freak.” Now Casey sounds more worked up. “She’s been to the E.R. _three times_. She cuts herself with an X-Acto knife. _That’s_ a freak.”

Dave doesn’t really know what to say to that. He doesn’t really like the idea of either Casey or this X-Acto blue-haired girl being a freak, but what does he know? Maybe it’s some kind of therapeutic reclaiming thing. “Uh. That doesn’t sound good?” he finally says. 

“She says I scare people, but that’s just stupid,” Casey continues. “I’ve never scared anybody.”

Dave feels a little bit like he just hit the sled too hard at practice or something. “Excuse me?”

“I’m not scary. I don’t scare anybody.”

“Those aren’t the same thing,” Dave says flatly. “And I guess you just don’t realize when you’ve scared people.” Because a year ago was the scariest fucking day of Dave’s life, even if Casey doesn’t seem to get that.

“Nothing I do is any worse than anything they do. Just because I don’t get all worked up and _cry_ about it every meeting, that doesn’t make me a freak!”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Dave admits, “and my statement still stands: I guess you just haven’t realized when you’ve scared people before.” There must be some kind of meeting with the X-Acto girl and someone crying, maybe the same girl, but Dave’s not sure.

“At group. There’s a group. I go to group,” Casey says. “It’s for— well, I guess it’s just a group for _freaks_ , is what it is. Scary freaks like me, I guess.”

Dave huffs. “Are you even listening to yourself? You just told me that you never scared anyone before. Casey. You just told _me_ , that you never scared anyone. Today. You told me that _today_.”

There’s a very long silence, so long that Dave pulls his phone away from his face just to double-check that they didn’t get disconnected. 

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Casey finally says, very quietly. “That’s— I didn’t mean like that. I’m sorry, I didn’t…"

“How was I supposed to think you meant it?” Dave asks, closing his eyes and resting his forehead against his hand. “Casey, you can’t just…" Dave doesn’t know how to finish the sentence. Pretend it didn’t happen? Pretend Dave wasn’t there? Act like everything was fine for Dave that day? Ignore what day it is? All of those and none of those. 

“I—” There’s another long stretch of silence. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have said that. That was really stupid to say. I’m sorry.”

Dave’s had exactly one session with the counselor from the counseling center, and she says that whatever else is going on with Dave, he’s ‘emotionally constipated’. After Dave finished laughing at the term, he had to admit that Lisa was right. Lisa said that he should try actually saying what he’s thinking, and maybe this isn’t what she meant, but hell. Maybe it is. 

“I carried you out of your house, Case. I _carried you out of the house_. I called fucking 911, I met the ambulance, I told them what I knew, I went to the hospital, and then I watched you disappear between double doors, swinging back and forth, and this poor woman named J-something kept telling me I couldn’t go back there. Don’t tell me you’ve never scared anyone, or that you’re a freak, or, or.” Dave stops and takes a deep breath. “You don’t even know, Case. You don’t.”

“David,” Casey says softly. He sounds like he’s crying, or possibly just on the verge of tears; he’s so quiet that Dave can’t be sure. “I didn’t…"

Dave isn’t sure what Casey would finish the sentence with; ‘know’, maybe. “Don’t get so caught up that you assume,” Dave starts, but he can’t finish it. There’s so much. So many things to say, and considering he himself managed an entire monologue, he’ll probably go back to his default setting soon. 

“Nobody ever told me…" Casey trails off and then sighs. “I didn’t… Hurting you wasn’t something that I ever wanted to do.”

“I’m going to be really honest, here, Case.” Dave sighs. “Maybe too blunt. I don’t think most of the time you were thinking about whether or not you were hurting anyone else.”

“David, I—” Casey begins placatingly, then cuts himself off abruptly. When he speaks again, he sounds both startled and more sincere. “No. No, I wasn’t. I don’t think I was at all.”

Dave nods slowly, thinking. “Just— you’re not— let—” He stops, not sure how to phrase it, any of it. “Don’t neglect yourself _or_ other people. It’s not an either or proposition.”

“It feels like either or,” Casey says. “A lot, it feels like that.”

“Never said it might not feel that way,” Dave acknowledges ruefully. “But just try to remember it’s _not_. Okay?”

“I’ll try. Maybe I should write it on the back of my hand or something. Then at least I can remember to try to remember?”

Dave chuckles for a moment. “You could color-coordinate for each day.”

“No, you know I’m bad at colors unless it’s filing systems,” Casey says. “I don’t understand the rules for that. They don’t make any sense.”

“Nah, like a filing system. Red for Mondays, or whatever,” Dave explains.

“That might work, maybe. Waterproof ink for swimming days.”

“Isn’t every day a swimming day during the season?”

“Yes, but the season’s over after this weekend. State tournament starts today, but that’s just the divers,” Casey says. “The rest of us don’t start until Friday. So starting on Monday, I don’t need waterproofed every day.”

“Ah, yeah, that’s right,” Dave says. 

“I did a little better this season than just not drowning,” Casey says. “So that was good.”

Dave laughs. “Yeah, I saw those times on that card. Little better than staying afloat, definitely.”

 

**Friday, February 22nd, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Miles**

Miles doesn’t _walk Casey to class_ or anything, it’s just that most of Casey’s classes happen to be more-or-less on the way-ish to most of Miles’ classes. Miles is just leaving Casey’s third period classroom when he’s beset by a small gaggle of Cheerios that Miles recognizes as also being in glee club with Alicia. The fan out into a little red-uniformed triangle, trapping Miles against the locker.

“Ladies,” Miles says. He puts on his biggest panty-dropping grin, since Alicia’s not around to say something about it. “Anything I can do for you?”

Cheerios aren’t necessarily known for their excess of brains—Alicia excluded, of course—and these three are about the giggliest damn things the squad has to offer. Miles knows Jenni pretty well from the pre-business card days at McKinley, and he thinks the Korean girl’s name is Annie, but the third one just blends in with the rest of the heart-dot-i set.

It’s the third girl who talks first, and she must have some kind of speech thing going on, because she just sort of mumbles something about a party. Jenni and possibly-Annie both nod along, so Miles asks, “So… there’s a party?”

“At Jodi’s house,” Jenni explains. “Her parents are out of town all weekend, it’s supposed to be wild. We’re trying to get all the football players to come.”

Miles shakes his head at that. “Does my sister know about this? I mean, don’t get me wrong, those cards are bullshit, but…"

The three of them start giggling again, and Annie-maybe says, “It’s okay. You can bring your boyfriend.”

“What?” Miles asks. “I can— _what_?”

“Just think about it,” Jenni says, and the triangle-Cheerio-fan folds back up into a Cheerio-clump. “It’ll be great.”

“Hope we see you two there!” Annie-definitely-Annie adds. Jodi-the-mumbler says something else, but Miles is too hung up on this whole _boyfriend_ thing to try to sort it out, and the Cheerios melt into the hallway crowd.

“Boyfriend?” Miles says aloud. “What the actual fuck are they talking about?”

 

**Tuesday, February 26th, 2013: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

"It snowed!" Ty yells out in the dorm before Dave's even out of bed. Dave groans and thinks about burying his head under his pillow, but then Ty flings his door open. "Special K, we've got actual snow for you."

Dave shakes his head and glares at Ty. "Finally."

"I'm going to go check if classes are cancelled!" Ty continues, turning from the door, and now Dave is marginally more interested. He walks to the window and looks out, then frowns. 

"That's maybe an inch," he mutters to himself. "Why would classes be cancelled?"

"Yes! No classes!" Ty calls, then Dave can hear Ty open the main door and shout into the hall. "No classes! Campus buildings are closed!"

"Wait, _why_?" Dave asks, heading down the hall towards the coffee machine. "Why is everything cancelled?"

"Because it snowed," Ty says, shutting the door and giving Dave a weird look. "Why else?"

"But there's only an inch. If that." Dave shakes his head. "I was expecting a foot or something, when you said that about classes."

"Oh, Special K." Ty grins. "Down here, we don't get a lot of snow, and when we do?" Ty shrugs. "The city shuts down, man. Enjoy it. At least we have some food."

Dave narrows his eyes. "Wait, what? Food? You have trouble with not having food in an inch of snow?"

"Bet the shelves are empty of milk, bread, and eggs," Ty says cheerfully. "Don't people panic in Ohio? Ever?"

"Dad and I never did." Dave shrugs. "Wait, milk, bread, and eggs? People in the south make French toast if it snows?" Dave needs to remember to tell Casey about this bizarre compulsion of southerners: French toast. 

Before Ty can answer, Coop comes shuffling into the kitchen in sweats and a robe. “It snowed out there, d’you guys see?” Coop asks blearily as he pours himself a cup of coffee. “Looks like a lot. Think they’ll cancel classes?”

“That is _not_ a—”

“Already checked!” Ty interrupts, sounding jubilant. “Classes are cancelled _and_ buildings on campus are closed, so they can’t make us go workout, either!”

“Sweet!” Coop answers, with as much enthusiasm as a guy just getting his coffee can have.

“I still don’t get it,” Dave admits. “French toast and everything shut down for this little sprinkling?”

“Hey, guys!” Danny says. “Did you see? We got a real snowstorm last night. Not as much as they got at home, I bet, though.”

“It’s almost like a blizzard out there, Special K,” Coop argues. “Why wouldn’t they shut everything down?”

Dave starts to laugh. “A blizzard? Coop, I don’t think you’ve ever seen a real blizzard. Senior year, just before Christmas, we had a foot of snow dumped on Lima overnight and the roads were closed. For a few _hours_.”

“A foot?” Danny’s eyes are wide as he reaches for his coffee mug. “I bet that made some awesome snowmen.”

“Uh, I guess so?” Dave shrugs. “I wasn’t exactly outside in it. We’d played in the regional quarterfinal the night before, so I was in bed.”

“Shit, where’d I even put my gloves?” Coop mutters to himself. “I know I brought my pair with me.”

“No one’s hit the courtyard yet, I checked before I came in here!” Danny says, grinning. 

“Why do you think I got up so early?” Ty says, returning Danny’s grin. 

Dave isn’t sure why all three of them are so excited about snow, but before he can ask for more clarification on the French toast thing—maybe it’s a southern tradition, like fried chicken or something?—his phone rings and he answers it quickly. 

“Hey, it’s Brandon. I’m guessing I didn’t wake you up since you answered so quick.”

“Hey. No, we’re all up. I didn’t know snow was this exciting,” he adds, speaking a little louder and looking at each of his dormmates. 

“Yeah, the guys in my dorm were thinking about getting out for a good snowball fight. You guys want to join us? That courtyard near your dorm still untouched?”

“It’s reportedly still pristine.”

“Awesome. Freshmen versus underclassmen in twenty?”

“Sure. See you then.” Dave hangs up and grins. “Go get dressed, we’re apparently defending the honor of the freshmen via snowball fight.”

“Fight with who?” Coop asks. “Who was that on the phone?”

“Brandon. The guys in his dorm are apparently spoiling for a fight.”

Ty nods. “Ahh, Brandon.” He grins at Dave. “Maybe we should just assume it’s Brandon, unless we hear Dave say ‘dad’?”

“Oversharing!” Coop says, pouring a second cup of coffee. “Snowballs are the only balls anybody’d better be talking about, y’all got that?”

“We were talking about balls?” Danny asks, looking puzzled. “I don’t remember talking about balls.”

Dave groans. “I’m going to go find my gloves, which will keep my hands warm. Unlike whatever passes for gloves down here. Blizzard,” he scoffs.


	10. March 2013

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some things don't have deeper meanings; some things do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warnings: Extensive references to past self-harm, references to prior suicide attempt(s). This chapter also contains non-graphic sexual content.**

**Tuesday, March 5th, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

Casey should be listening to Taylor talk about the preliminary planning for next month’s Day of Silence and Night of Noise, instead of thinking about whether he’d have a better chance of dragging Miles into the janitor’s closet or the upstairs bathroom. Miles’ ‘not on PFLAG days’ rule is so arbitrary, anyway, and if Casey moves fast enough, Miles won’t remember the rule until he’s too distracted to care about it. Like Miles’ Ma would say—if Miles’ Ma knew and approved of the two of them having sex, especially on school grounds—no sex at school on Tuesdays is a dumb hill to die on.

“So we don’t have that really big flag this year,” Taylor says. “Not sure where that came from, actually. But apparently we still have crepe paper for decorating for the Night of Noise.” Taylor frowns. “Casey?”

“Oh! Sorry,” Casey says. “Crepe paper. Yes, Miles has a lot of crepe paper, right Miles?”

“You bet I do, Cherry,” Miles says, grinning in a way that makes Casey sure that luring him into the janitor’s closet wouldn’t be at all difficult. “Six or seven colors, even.”

“Miles has six or seven colors,” Casey says to Taylor. “I think we’re set on crepe paper.”

Taylor rolls his eyes and mutters something under his breath. “Right. But we still need to finalize the _venue_.”

“Aunt Shannon told me this weekend we could use the football field again,” Casey says. “We probably need a backup plan for if it rains, though, so a headcount of people participating is, um. Something that we need. I have a sign-up sheet!” Casey unzips his backpack and pulls out the PFLAG binder, flipping to the divider marked ‘DoS/NoN’ and clipping a pen to the sign-up sheet. He hands the binder to his right. “Put down your name and if you can think of anybody who might want to participate, but isn’t here, you could write their names down, too.”

“And that is, once again, why we let him handle the paperwork,” Taylor says with a laugh. “Anyone have any thoughts on a backup location?”

“Schue would let us use the choir room,” Brooklyn calls out. “I’ll tell him at rehearsal.”

“Yeah, okay, sounds good,” Taylor agrees. “Choir room, check. What else? Casey?”

“Movie night. Miles is hosting again, so—”

“And Alicia!” Rick calls out.

“And Alicia,” Casey agrees. “Miles and Alicia are hosting again, so come prepared for juice.”

A few people start to groan, but Casey levels a cold look at them at the same time Miles says, “Don’t you _even_ insult my Ma, or there’s gonna be a problem,” and everyone stops groaning immediately. 

“Like I said,” Casey says. “Come prepared for juice and to respect Miles’ Ma.”

“Damn right,” Miles mutters, crossing his arms over his chest and shaking his head. “Barbarians. A little vegetable juice never hurt anybody.”

“Well, there was the one time she thought she’d try the jalapenos, Miles,” Alicia says. 

“Alicia, when I want your opinion, you can just give it to Foots, ’cause I don’t ever want it and he always does,” Miles snaps, and Casey laughs, then tries to look like he’s not laughing.

Alicia looks like she’s about to launch herself at Miles, so Casey raises his voice and quickly says, “And we’re still taking suggestions for movies, so if you have one, you can flip to the ‘movies’ section of the binder and write it down!”

“Miles,” Alicia says sweetly. “I can always tell Ma about a few things. Or send an administrator around the right places.”

“Oh, I could tell Ma a few things myself,” Miles retorts. 

Alicia rolls her eyes. “Try me, Miles. Just try me.”

“The jalapenos were definitely very painful,” Casey tells Alicia. “Please ask your Ma to skip the peppers, and nobody needs to tell her anything else about anybody else, okay?” He gives Miles a look that he hope communicates ‘please shut up before I have to stop fucking you on campus’. Miles must understand, because he stops talking and sits there looking a little sulky.

“And on that note, I think the meeting’s officially over,” Taylor says. “Grab more food? What is it today, Casey?”

“Finger sandwiches. No actual fingers, sorry. Also some kind of vegetarian pasta thing with various cheeses,” Casey says. “Oh! And Pranesh brought bean dip. It’s vegan.”

 

**Thursday, March 7th, 2012: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Coffee had led to a basketball game, which had led to a movie, with a snowball fight thrown in as well. When Brandon had mentioned grabbing dinner together on Wednesday night, Dave had turned him down, explaining that he does try to make most of the College of Architecture lectures. Even if the information doesn't turn out to be immediately helpful, Dave thinks it's helpful to get to know more of the Architecture faculty. It also shows them, maybe, that he's serious about his major, not just a football player jerking them around. 

But Brandon volunteers to meet him there—“I’ll drag you to something about aerospace engineering sometime”—and then suggests they grab pizza and walk to Brandon's house afterwards to eat it. 

Which is what they do, in fact, though when they get to Brandon's, no one else is home, so they don't have to defend their pizza from anyone wanting to mooch. And Dave's not exactly surprised, either, when laughing at the sitcom reruns on television and eating pizza turns into making out a little, right there on the couch, curtains covering the window that faces the street. 

Dave is a little surprised, though, when Brandon's hand drifts lower, then pauses, like he's waiting for permission. Then it hits Dave that actually, that's exactly what Brandon's doing, and Brandon's waiting for some kind of response, so Dave kisses him again, nodding slightly, and now Brandon's hand moves again. 

That Dave wasn't expecting this turn of events is a bit of an understatement, but it's still true. He isn't expecting it, he doesn't know what the proper response is, and he's definitely sure that it doesn't necessarily mean anything other than that the two of them are mutually enjoying themselves. 

At least Dave assumes that Brandon's enjoying himself, and then Dave stops thinking for a little while, as Brandon moves lower. Brandon's hands rest on Dave's hips, not really holding him down – more of a suggestion that he not move. Dave feels more exposed than he actually is, almost all of his clothes still on, and Brandon's mouth moves down, startling Dave. 

"Fuck!" he mutters, and there's the ghost of a chuckle from Brandon before he slides his tongue around Dave. Dave doesn't know what to _do_ , other than just sit there – his hands end up resting on Brandon's shoulders, which Brandon doesn't seem to mind, and he presses his lips together. 

Dave doesn't spend time thinking about specific things that he could do, or that someone could do for him. It's not part of his daily life, and it's not something he expected to occur, not even with Brandon's offer of eating in. He’s never _let_ himself think about someone's mouth on him, not when there always seems to be a reason why it won't or can't happen, and Dave closes his eyes, because if he had let himself think about it – well. 

Brandon's sandy-blond hair wouldn't have been what he would have pictured. He would have seen smaller hands than Brandon's, hair that fell around chin-length, someone shorter; someone he doesn't deserve and doesn't have. 

But Brandon's mouth moves faster, and Dave feels his body move involuntarily, his hands fisting in Brandon's sweatshirt as he lets out a low sound and comes. Brandon keeps moving, then pulls away, looking pleased with himself. 

"Should I—" Dave starts, only to have Brandon shake his head. 

"Reciprocation not necessary," Brandon says, flashing a quick grin at Dave as he levers himself up and sits down on the couch again. "Just wanted to." He shrugs.

Dave nods, not sure exactly what he's agreeing with, slowly fastening his jeans. They're exactly what they were before. It's a little freeing that everything is exactly what it seems on the surface, not having a deeper meaning, but when Dave walks back across campus later, he can't help but feel that maybe it's a little sad, too, because not having a deeper meaning is close to not meaning anything. 

 

**Tuesday, March 12th, 2013: Atlanta, Georgia — Ty**

For awhile, Special K’s phone hadn’t been ringing much at all, and Ty had been a little concerned. Sure, Special K hangs out with them, and he has his architecture buddies that text him when they aren’t all stuck in the studio, but aside from his dad, Special K wasn’t really talking to anyone. 

Then this Brandon guy starts calling, and Ty and Coop had a discussion about that. About half the team either knows or guesses about Special K now, and none of them seem to really care, but actually going on a date—whether Special K calls it a date or not, they know what’s up—is a little different. They keep a close eye on Brandon at the snowball fight and Ty thinks _maybe_ they can relax about Brandon the aerospace engineer. Maybe. 

When he walks past Special K’s bedroom, though, and Special K’s on the phone, Ty almost stops in his tracks. He stands just outside the door, where Special K can’t hear him, and listens. The tone of Special K’s voice is different from when he talks to Brandon or his dad. It sounds like it used to, when he talked to Casey, and it’s that change in his voice that makes Ty keep standing there. 

“I think Superman absorbs the resulting force. If he catches Lois, his body can take it, and hers can’t, Case. I mean, think about it. He’s _alien_.”

Ty’s eyes widen. _Case_. He slowly starts to move down the hall again, enough information gathered for now. He grabs a Coke from the refrigerator and sits down next to Danny, who’s reading something for his English class. Only about five minutes pass before Special K emerges from his bedroom, waving at them and saying something about time in the studio. Ty waves back, and waits exactly four minutes before he calls down the hall. “Coop! Get in here! Y’all aren’t going to believe what I know.”

Coop wanders into the hall pulling a sweatshirt over his head. “Yeah? Well, don’t be stingy, lay it on me.”

“Guess who Special K was talking to just now,” Ty says, grinning.

“Brandon, probably,” Coop answers, shrugging. “Ain’t exactly news.”

“Nope.” Ty shakes his head. “Guess again.”

“One of those architecture people he studies with?” Danny asks.

“Shit, Ty, come on,” Coops says. “He doesn’t talk to that many peop— ohhhh. Seriously?”

“Yep. I heard him. Same ol’ tone in his voice, and he said ‘Case’, so.”

“So Casey ditched the Miles douche?” Coop asks. “Good on him.”

“I guess so,” Ty agrees. “I can’t believe Special K didn’t tell us, though.”

“So sad for that Miles,” Danny says. “Except not really.”

“So, are Special K and him gonna hook up now or what?” Coop asks. “Or’s it like it was before where he’s all ‘nah, Case is my best friend’ and the rest of us are sitting around going ‘sure he is, Special K, sure’?”

“Well, Special K’s still talking to Brandon, right?” Danny asks. “I mean. You think he’s told Casey about Brandon?”

“Seems like that’d be fair?” Ty asks. “But, no, you know he isn’t. Special K’s kind of like gay Superman.”

“The hell’s that even mean?” Coop mutters. “Gay Superman.”

“You know, all justice and the American way, leaping over those paper buildings and shit. Gay Superman. We should get him a costume.”

“But Special K can’t _really_ fly to Ohio,” Danny says. “Can his costume have a K instead of an S?”

“I don’t see what being Superman has to do with it,” Coop grumbles. “I bet even Superman hits that sometimes. Or I dunno, maybe he’d just blow a hole out the back of Lois Lane.”

Ty leans over and hits Coop on the back of the head. “Superman would never be so crude,” he says in his best orator’s voice. 

“Well, Superman’s a douche, too,” Coop says, rubbing the back of his head. “And Batman would totally be that crude.”

“And that’s why Special K is not gay Batman, right?” Danny asks. “Besides, a K’d look dumb on the Batman costume.”

Ty snorts. “Yeah, Danny. That’s exactly the reason why.”

 

**Saturday, March 16th, 2013: Dayton, Ohio — Casey**

Casey and Miles sit on the sofa with the weird mauve velvet upholstery and survey the room for a while before Miles finally announces, “Well, shit, Cherry. I do believe we’ve worked this room.”

First Casey laughs, because Miles sounds so surprised that it’s finally happened and he’s run out of potential new friends, then he has to acknowledge that he’s not really any better off than Miles in that regard. He thought the guy talking to Peter might be new, but then it just turned to be the guy from two weeks ago with a new, very short haircut, and _that_ would have been awkward.

“There’s, um… not that many people here?” Casey offers as reassurance. “I’m sure next week will be better. We can’t have fucked _everybody_ in Western Ohio, Miles. Not statistically speaking, anyway.”

“Cherry, at the rate we’re going, we might manage it before I graduate,” Miles says. He doesn’t sound even the slightest bit regretful about that; it sounds more like it’s a personal goal he has every intention of achieving. 

April walks up to the back of the sofa and leans on it. “You two should be listening to this, you know.”

Neither Casey nor Miles even looks back at her. “Oh yeah?” Miles says. “Why’s that?”

“Testing,” April says with a bit of an edge. “You wouldn’t happen to know about the need for that, now, would you?”

Casey raises his arm and he sees Miles do the same, both of them still with band-aids from the clinic on Friday in the crooks of their elbows. Like they practiced it, they both say, “Already went.”

“Overachievers. You two trying to be Lionel’s favorites?” April asks.

“Woman,” Miles says, shaking his head. “We were in Kurt Hummel’s PFLAG. We heard this lecture already, and it was way less douchey when he gave it, even if he does hate me for no reason whatsoever.”

“Knowing you, you probably hit on one of his boys,” April says carelessly. “That’s probably why he hates you.”

That’s sort of a weird way for her to put it, but Casey has to agree that’s probably why. “She might be right, Miles,” he points out.

“Yeah, and she might have magical powers, too, but since I haven’t seen those yet, either…”

April laughs. “Oh, you just never actually stay here long enough to see them!” Casey starts to laugh, and April turns to him, shaking her head. “No, you don’t either.” 

Casey would argue, but she’s actually completely right about that one, so instead he just shrugs. “We’re staying for awhile today, I guess.”

“I assumed one of you had food poisoning or something.” April smiles brightly. “But if you don’t, hang around for another half-hour or so and I can hook you up!”

“No, he’s not new,” Casey says. “Same guy with shorter hair.”

“Oh, you’re sure right!” Miles says. “I thought he was new, too, but it is just the hair. Too bad, ’cause it doesn’t do anything for him.”

“Good God. I meant I would hook you up with some food poisoning. I’ll just bring a few vials of bubonic plague next week, instead.”

“Might be about the same,” Casey muses. 

“Food poisoning would last longer,” Miles says.

“And now we’re officially in the realm of things I don’t want to hear about, actually,” April muses. “Those two cuties in your PFLAG group broken up yet?”

“Nope. Sorry,” Casey says. “But I heard that Nat might be moving in with her dad in another school district, so maybe if you wait, it’ll work out for you.”

April grins. “See, I knew I came over to talk to you for a reason. Well, I really do have to get that smoke detector working.”

“It was nice talking to you, April,” Casey says.

“You, too!” April says. “Tell the big guy hi for me!”

“I sure will,” Casey promises. April saunters away in the direction of the kitchen, and Miles leans his head against the back of the sofa.

“When did this place get boring, Cherry? Can you answer that for me?”

“Do you want to get some coffee and maybe go see a movie instead?” Casey offers. “Or ice cream or something?”

“Actually, that sounds like a really good plan,” Miles says. “We’ve already gotten an A on this lecture, anyway.”

 

**Sunday, March 17th, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Miles**

They get back from Dayton later than Miles had thought they would, because of the movie, but since they’d already planned on Casey crashing over anyway, it doesn’t really throw off any of their plans, which are mostly to eat dinner, get caught up on a few DVR’d episodes of that new Frankenstein show that Alicia and Rick watch, wait until Ma and Dad go to bed, and then fuck for at least a couple of hours.

By three, Casey is curled up in a little ball on his side, wearing nothing but his underwear, asleep and holding on to Miles with his fingers and toes like he’s going to fall off the bed if he lets go. Miles ought to be sleeping like a baby after all of that, but he can’t shut his brain off, and everytime he starts to drift off, Casey moves or makes some kind of sound, and Miles is wide awake again.

Sleeping with Casey—sleep-sleeping, not euphemistically sleeping—is a dicey prospect in general, Miles has discovered. Casey doesn’t seem to sleep so much as close his eyes and then attempt to survive the night; he twitches, whimpers, cries out quietly, and sometimes mumbles words or phrases that Miles thinks maybe it’s good he can’t understand. He clings to Miles, not like a lover, but like a ring-tailed lemur hanging onto a tree in a storm.

Miles wishes he could do something about Casey’s sleep, but touching him just makes him flinch when he’s like that, so Miles lies there flat on his back with Casey death-gripping his upper arm, his forehead pressed against Miles’ shoulder. Seems like there’s something somebody should be able to do about that, but Miles has no idea what the solution might be. Doesn’t seem right that Casey can’t even sleep like normal people.

Casey makes a little noise and grips Miles tighter, and Miles rolls towards him a little, lets his hand rest oh-so-carefully on Casey’s side. Casey’s whole body feels like it’s vibrating under Miles’ hand, and Miles runs his hand along Casey’s side, making soft soothing sounds to try and calm him down. Casey starts muttering half-syllables again, and mixed in among the meaningless sounds, Miles is sure he hears “David” and his heart sinks.

His heart _sinks_. It fucking sinks, and Miles says “well, shit” to himself, because…

Well, shit. He’s gone and done the stupidest thing he ever could have done in a long, long line of stupid things, and fallen in love with Casey. Casey, who likes Miles, likes hanging out with Miles, enjoys fucking Miles, and probably thinks better of Miles than anybody else does—and probably better than anybody has a right to, honestly—but doesn’t love him. _Can’t_ love him, because no matter what happens, no matter what Casey says or doesn’t say, no matter how much time passes or shit happens or how far apart they are, Casey will only ever be in love with Dave Karofsky.

Miles is in love with Casey. Miles is completely fucked. 

 

**Monday, March 18th, 2013: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Brandon and Dave never discuss it explicitly, but when Brandon calls Dave over the weekend and asks if he wants to catch a movie on Monday evening, Dave immediately understands, somehow, that it's a group thing, and Brandon is just asking as a friend. 

Whatever their brief period of dating?—or something like it?—was, it's clearly over, and Dave finds that he's okay with that. There's seven of them that end up at the movie theater, and after a brief discussion, Dave realizes that they're going to see _Carrie_ , of all things. 

He also quickly realizes that every single one of them there is gay, and Dave himself is the least stereotypically gay of the seven of them. The theater is mostly empty, which means that by halfway through the movie, everyone's offering a running commentary, and Dave's glad he actually watched the original one night on TCM with Az, back in freshman year, because otherwise he'd be even more confused by the plot than he already is. 

When the movie finishes, they walk over to the Tavern for what Brandon calls a snack and another guy, Scott, insists is actually dinner "except for freaks like Brandon that eat dinner at four".

"We can all pretend to be hobbits," Dave offers. "So Brandon already had afternoon tea…"

"… and now we're having supper!" Jared finishes for him. "I like that. See, Brandon? You're just a hobbit."

"Everyone's a hobbit compared to me." Dave grins and takes his seat as the rest of them laugh. 

The conversation turns away from hobbits and, thankfully in Dave's opinion, away from the movie as well, ranging from what there is to do for the rest of the week—see more movies, catch up on schoolwork, and sleep are the top three answers—to professors to avoid. 

As they head back to their cars in one big, noisy group, Dave finds himself just a half-step behind the others, and after a moment, Jared drops back as well. A short conversation later, and Dave's agreed to go to a concert at Eddie's Attic on Friday evening.

He climbs into his truck and sets his phone on the seat beside him, staring at it for a moment. He doesn't know what he's doing, being social and apparently going on dates, even if he's not dating anyone, and some days, all Dave wants is to talk about it with Casey. 

But he can't, because it's _Casey_ and _him_ , and what Dave really wants to do is not be going on these dates at all. Every single time, his thoughts come back to Casey, and if that doesn't tell Dave something – well. Dave's not a complete idiot.

 

**Wednesday, March 20th, 2013: Harrison Township, Ohio — Casey**

Somehow, the blue-haired girl—Kate—gets her way, and Casey not only agrees to go over to her house to swim, but ends up part of a whole post-Shush pool party at her heated outdoor pool. She emails everyone the day before to remind them and let them know this is a ‘scars-out party’, self-harmers among self-harmers, no cover-ups allowed. Casey considers telling her no or just not showing up, but in the end, the lure of a warm outdoor pool in March is too strong, so he packs his slightly-too-large swimsuit, the one that sits low enough on his hips to show the scars, in his backpack before he makes the drive to Dayton for group.

After group, everybody carpools over to Kate’s house in Harrison. Casey transports Austin and Jonathan, who isn’t so bad outside of group, really. Everybody takes turns changing into their swimsuits in Kate’s bathrooms, and the resulting swimsuited group of them is somehow both slightly funny and incredibly sad. Casey knows they’re looking at his scars, the ones on his arm and the ones visible above the waistband of his suit, but then, he’s looking at theirs, too.

Kate’s scars are definitely the worst, big raised purple gashes across the meaty parts of her forearms. Divorce-girl—Amanda—and her friends have pink scars around their arms like stacked bracelets, some of them with marks on their stomachs and legs, too; one of Amanda’s looks fresh, and Casey feels a twinge of guilt for how less-than-seriously he takes her at group. Austin’s scars are the oldest, most of them faded to white; he’s been in Shush the longest, probably needs it the least, but keeps on coming to group anyway. Jonathan’s sole ragged scar up the inside of his arm stands out as the only obvious suicide attempt, but Casey knows that doesn’t really mean anything. Some attempts don’t leave marks where other people can see.

Maybe Kate was right when she told him to accept he’s more fucked up than he thinks he is. Maybe she was even right when she called him a freak. She seems like she’d probably have a pretty good read on both of those things, because she’s like him. They all are. It’s a broken, fucked-up little group of freaks, all of them together. Casey doesn’t feel self-conscious or angry or miserable or indignant, or any of the things he’s spent most of the last eight months or so feeling. He feels like he belongs; he feels less lonely than he can remember feeling since David left.

The pool is warm and the water feels great, but the air around the pool isn't heated and dips down into the low 40s, so the whole group of them huddles together in the water for a while. It’s surprisingly quiet and low-key for something billed as a party, but weirdly intimate. The girls start off pointing to each other’s scars, then touching them lightly, asking questions about where this one came from, where that one came from. Amanda and either Krista or Stacy—Casey can’t keep them straight—sit on the pool steps with Jonathan; Krista-or-Stacy holds his hand while he cries, and it doesn’t feel annoying or pathetic, just sad. Austin, Alexandra, Brandy, and Stacy-or-Krista mill about in the shallow end, sometimes holding up an arm to display a scar, sometimes reaching out to touch each other’s wrist or arm.

Casey treads water in the deep end, watching everyone. When he feels a light touch on the crook of his elbow, he startles, splashing a little as he turns towards Kate.

“Some of these look really old,” she says, and Casey nods. “You’ve done this a long time.”

“Yeah,” he answers. Kate swims over to the edge of the pool, and Casey follows her. They each hold on to the pool’s edge with one hand, kicking their legs slowly in the water, not saying anything for awhile.

“I used to swim,” Kate says, after several minutes have passed. “Through middle school and my freshman year of high school. Then I had my first E.R. visit partway through my freshman year, and everybody on the team freaked when they saw me in a swimsuit, so I stopped.”

Casey nods. “Was that the first time you did it?” he asks her.

“No, just the first time I cut so deep that it needed stitches,” she says. “I started when I was twelve.”

“Yeah, about the same for me,” Casey says. It’s kind of weird to talk about it outside of Dr. Naser’s office, especially so easily, since he never has made it easy for Dr. Naser to pry words out of him. It’s better than Dr. Naser, too, because Kate doesn’t ask him why, just like he doesn’t ask her why.

“When’d you have your 72 hours?” Kate asks.

“Year ago in February,” Casey says. “You?”

“It’ll be a year in May. Intentional?”

“Sort of?” Casey says. It’s the best answer he can give, even after all this time.

“Yeah, same,” Kate says. “So, tell me about the boy.”

“Huh? What boy?” Casey asks her.

“There’s a boy. I know there’s a boy,” she insists. “Tell me about him. He’s the one who plays football, right? The one you talked about that time.”

“Oh. He’s not, um. He’s not really _a boy_ , not like that. He’s my best friend.”

“Yeeeah, he’s a boy,” Kate argues. “I can see it in your face. You’re easier to read than you think. You like him.”

Casey shrugs one shoulder. “Doesn’t matter. It’s not like that.”

“But you want it to be.”

“I want lots of stuff,” Casey says. “I messed it up too bad for… I thought maybe, for a little while, that he felt like I feel. I, um. Kissed him. Kind of a lot, really, and he kissed me back, and I thought that maybe when he came home from school, we could figure it out, right?”

“Didn’t work, though?”

“No. I pretty much threw myself at him when he came home for Thanksgiving,” Casey admits. “And he told me he _can’t_. I didn’t really get it at first. I was really hurt, but there was stuff I didn’t know, and now I do, and it makes sense that he can’t feel the same way.”

“Yeah?” Kate asks, not like she’s challenging what he’s saying, just like she really wants to know more.

“He carried me out. When I, you know,” Casey explains. He rests his arm on the pool edge and leans his head on his arm, still slowly kicking his legs through the water. “He found me. I called him, I guess? I don’t remember any of it. He came to my house and found me, though, and he carried me out of my house to the ambulance. I think, maybe, when someone does that for you, you don’t get to have them any other way but friends. I think he _tried_ to give me more than that, but you know. He can’t.”

“Is that why you do it?” Kate asks him, gesturing vaguely at Casey’s arm and hip.

Casey shakes his head against his arm. “I just didn’t have a reason not to anymore, I guess, and once I started again, there didn’t seem like any reason to stop.”

“That sounds pretty stupid,” Kate says.

“Probably,” Casey says. “But that’s just how it is.”

“Well, that sounds stupid, too.”

“Yeah,” Casey agrees.

“You love him?” Kate asks.

“So much,” Casey says. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “And I miss him so, so much.”

Casey feels one cold, wet arm wrap around him as Kate grabs him in an unexpected hug. He’s not sure he’s ever been hugged by a girl before, and it’s sort of weird. Nobody but Miles ever really hugs him at all anymore. It’s not bad, though, and he lets himself relax a little into it. Before she releases him, Casey even sort of hugs her back with one arm, giving her an awkward pat on the back.

“Thanks,” he says softly.

“Hey, freaks together, right?” Kate says. “Whatever else, we’ve all got that.”

 

**Sunday, March 24th, 2013: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

More than anything else school-related, at least for the moment, Dave wishes he had been right, that once he finished the psychology class he was taking through OSU-Lima, that he’d have been done with psychology forever. Of course, OSU-Lima was on quarters, and Tech is on semesters, and instead Dave’s still frowning at psychology texts. 

Dave glances at the clock and then picks up his phone. He can read more about language and thought later; psychology never seems to go anywhere. Dave presses Casey’s name, figuring that Casey’s probably at home by now on a Sunday evening. The phone rings once before Casey answers, partway through the second ring. 

“David! Hi!” Casey says, sounding a little out of breath.

“Hey, Case,” Dave says. “I’m not interrupting anything?”

“No, I was just watching TV in the living room with Uncle Monty,” Casey says. “But I’ve seen it before. I left my phone in my room, though. So, hi! How are you?”

“Warmer than I was last week, so that’s something. You got my present?”

“Yes! The shirt is _awesome_ , but that spoon is way too small to eat anything useful,” Casey says. “So I guess I have to start, I don’t know. Which drug is it that you use spoons for?”

“Aren’t grapefruit spoons small? I think grapefruit might qualify as a drug.”

“Grapefruit spoons have those sharp edges on them, though. And I like grapefruit. Well, I like it if it has enough sugar on it.”

“Oh, well.” Dave frowns. “I don’t know then. Maybe display the spoon and pretend like you know what it’s supposed to be used for. Then when people ask, you can be ‘you mean you don’t know?’ like they’re just silly for not knowing.”

“I do that anyway,” Casey says. “Drives them crazy. Maybe I’ll put the spoon on a big chain and pretend I’m, um. Gangster or something.”

Dave chuckles despite his best effort not to do so. “I think living in Ohio sort of precludes most claims on gangster, though, Case.”

“Living in Ohio precludes most claims on _anything_ , really,” Casey says. “How were your classes this week? Did Danny get lost on the way to your English class again?”

“We’re thinking about chalking out his route when the fall semester starts, actually. No one will know why half the sidewalks say ‘Danny, this way!’ and probably some people will think it’s just part of a club.” Dave laughs. “But, nah, not this week.” 

“That’s good. Did you do anything fun this week?”

“Uh.” Dave stops for a minute, because there are certain things that they don’t seem to talk about. “Went to a concert the other night, relatively local band, I think. It was decent.”

“Cool. That sounds like fun. Um. Hmm. So, do you have any plans for this next week?” Casey asks.

“Spring practice starts on Tuesday, if you can believe that,” Dave says. “What about you? Swim practice start up again soon?”

“Just conditioning. It’s still a while before summer swim starts up. I’m not looking forward to the stupid cap again.”

“Find a doctor that says you’re allergic to whatever they make the caps from?” Dave suggests. “We’ve got a guy here that says he’s allergic to the grips on some of the weight machines.”

“Aunt Shannon had a guy who was allergic to eyeblack,” Casey says. “I feel like my brain’s going to suffocate when I wear the cap, but I guess there’s not really any way around it.”

“Hey, keep that in mind for any aliens that ever land. If they breathe through their heads or something, swim caps could be a great weapon.”

“Or a protective barrier to keep them from sucking my brains out through my skull!”

“Why doesn’t the government suggest swim caps in emergency kits?” Dave asks. “Clearly there’s some kind of conspiracy at work.”

“They probably don’t have the right people on the FEMA staff. We should consider starting a consulting firm. We could get rich and save the world while doing it.”

“That’s the American dream right there, Case. We’d practically be superheroes.”

“You’re already a superhero. Tall buildings, remember?” Casey laughs. “I’d just be the sidekick.”

“Nah. Think about the Avengers. No one’s really a sidekick.”

“Or everybody’s a sidekick.”

“Send that to Joss Whedon. It could be the tagline for the second movie,” Dave suggests.

“Oh, definitely.”

“So you do anything big yesterday?” Dave asks. 

“Um.” There’s a long pause before Casey continues, “No. Not really.”

“Coach at least get you a cake?”

“Yes. There was cake. It’s just not really a big deal birthday. I still can’t vote.”

“Not much to vote for this year, I guess,” Dave says. “But yeah, it’s a weird in-between one.”

“Yeah. I would have been fine with just skipping it,” Casey says.

“You’d still be older, might as well get the cake and presents, right?”

Casey sighs. “I guess so. Still another year left in Lima.” 

“Yeah, I guess so,” Dave agrees, not sure what else to say. “I’ll keep on the lookout for any more spoons, though.”

“Oh, good. I think I could make a convincing argument for being a collector if I had more than one.”

“Aquarium might have one with a crab.”

“Don’t give the crabs any ideas! Now that spring practice is starting, you’ve got to be on the lookout again!” Casey says. He inhales like he was going to say something else, but whatever it is, he doesn’t say it. 

Dave laughs. “Good point. I was hoping it’d be warm for practice, but maybe I should want the extra insurance of cold weather.”

Casey faintly echoes Dave’s laugh. “Maybe so. Probably a good plan.”

“I’m going to go see if Danny needs any help with English, anyway,” Dave says, glancing at the clock and suddenly realizing how much time has passed. “Something about how he has to write essays to play football.”

“Okay, David,” Casey says quietly. “I’ll talk to you on Tuesday.”

“Tuesday,” Dave agrees. “Bye, Case.”

“Bye, David.”

Dave waits for a few seconds, Casey staying on the line, and Dave ends the call. After all these months and everything else, Casey still always waits for Dave to hang up first.

 

**Friday, March 29th, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Rick**

Friday night is milkshake night. Actually, it's triple date night, but since that makes Brown make weird faces, Rick just calls it milkshake night. Rick, Alicia, Taylor, Maci, and Brown all get their usual milkshakes, and Casey gets peppermint and caramel, which looks and sounds about godawful. Casey doesn’t make any sort of godawful face while he’s drinking it, but Rick’s not so sure that’s the best way to judge whether it’s bad or not. 

“So you two,” Taylor says suddenly, pointing at Casey and then Miles, “should help us.”

Casey immediately looks shifty, like he’s worried about what Taylor’s gonna ask, but then Brown says, “Oh we should, should we?”

“It’s no skin off your nose,” Taylor says, still not explaining what he’s talking about. “It’s a formality. Like paperwork. You wouldn’t want me to be defeated by some mere paperwork, would you?”

“But… you’re always defeated by paperwork,” Casey says. “You say it pretty much every week in PFLAG.”

“Which is why I need your help in this particular instance. Not just me. Maci and I.”

“I’m hearing a whole lot of talking around something here,” Brown points out. “You feel like just spitting out what it is you want from us?”

“Prom,” Taylor says, like it’s self-explanatory. “Maci can get in with one of you, I can get in with the other one of you, and voila. All the sophomores, including Alicia, are at prom and happy.”

Casey just looks confused, like maybe he hadn’t even given prom any thought, but Brown scowls at Taylor. “D’you maybe think I might want to take somebody to prom that’s not you or your girlfriend?” Miles asks.

“I figured the likelihood of _you_ taking someone who couldn’t otherwise get in was slim, yeah.” Taylor rolls his eyes and shakes his head.

“If you give me the money, I’ll buy two tickets for you,” Casey says. “I don’t think I’m going to prom, so you can have them.” He doesn’t look like not going to prom bothers him at all, but Brown looks real sad about it for just a second before his face goes back to normal.

“Aww, Casey, you have to come to prom!” Alicia protests. “Ma already said we could take over the house except for their bedroom, afterwards.”

“Yeah, Casey,” Rick says. “You’ve gotta go. It’s like a tradition or something now, all of us going to the dances together. I’ll even dance with you this time!”

“See, Cherry?” Brown says. “With an offer like that on the table, how can you turn it down?”

“I’ll think about it,” Casey says. “But I can for sure get at least one ticket for you, Taylor.”

Taylor grins. “Cool. Maybe I’ll hit up Roger or something for the other one.”

“Cherry can get both your tickets for you,” Brown tells Taylor. “I’ll make sure he can get in if he wants to go. That work for everybody?”

“Thanks, man,” Taylor nods. 

“We can figure out more details when it gets closer,” Alicia says, and she looks at Maci before both of them giggle.

“This is so _great_!” Maci just about squeals. “I’m going to buy the _tallest shoes_ ever!”

“I’ll find out the name of that vintage place,” Alicia says to Maci. “That way we don’t have to worry about having the same dress as anyone else.”

“I’m glad I’m not a girl,” Rick says to Taylor. “It doesn’t matter if we all match or not. Being a dude is so much easier.”

Taylor laughs. “Preaching to the choir, dude.”


	11. April/May 2013

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prom and prom related things; Dave is a serial dater.

**Thursday, April 11th, 2013: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Dave never had realized how little there had been to do in Lima, not really. Now that he's in Atlanta, though, surrounded by so many potential events every single day, he realizes just how small and dead Lima is. It's probably for the best he hadn't realized the full extent of it while he was still living there, but it makes him cringe for Casey, still there another year. 

Back in the fall, Dave hadn't realized there were free concerts every Tuesday and Thursday, and even if he had, he had class then, but come the first of April, they resume, and that's how Dave finds himself in Centennial Olympic Park at noon on a Thursday with Seth. More or less how, anyway. 

It's the second time he's been out with Seth, and if the pattern holds from Brandon and Jared, it's probably the second to last, too. Three dates, some kind of sexual activity during or following the third one, and then back to casual friends or acquaintances. Dave doesn't really know Jared very well, even after the three dates, but he's still getting to know Brandon, over a month after they last went on a date, meaning it might turn into some sort of real friendship. 

Dave isn't sure yet about Seth. Seth Jenkins, sophomore industrial engineering major from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, might be more like Brandon – a friend that Dave briefly dates first. Or he could be more like Jared – an acquaintance, they dated, and if they see each other around campus or at Pride Alliance meetings, they nod. 

Seth seems like the kind of guy that Dave might end up more friendly with, at least more than Jared, which is something, and while once upon a time, the serial dating with the definite end point would have confused Dave, right now it's simple. Dave doesn't want anything more, not from any of them.

"I don't always make it down here," Seth says, flopping onto the ground, "but I promised myself last year I'd at least make it to a couple in April. Celebrate it getting warmer, you know?"

Dave nods. "Makes sense. Though really I never thought it got that cold, if I'm being honest."

Seth laughs. "Yeah, it's warmer here than back at home, just a bit, but I bet it's even more of a change for you. Ohio, right?"

"Yeah, Ohio. Straight up I–75, but otherwise pretty different." Dave shrugs. It's kind of strange how a Tech student that's from out of state gets so much attention, and he'd thought it'd be different with Seth, but North Carolina is still the south, Dave guesses, and Ohio is definitely not. 

"So is it hard? The whole football thing? I mean, you're not really…"

"Out?" Dave finishes the sentence. "I don't lie if someone asks, but no, I'm not really out. Probably a quarter of the guys on the team know, if I had to guess. All of my dormmates." He shrugs. "So far, I've been lucky."

"Oh. Wow, okay, that's cool." Seth looks almost impressed. "I would have thought, you know, you would have had to keep it more of a secret."

"If I were really keeping it a secret, I wouldn't go to Pride Alliance meetings," Dave points out. "Wouldn't have come out to anyone in high school, either. And definitely wouldn't—"

"—go out." Seth laughs. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Dumb question. Sorry."

Dave shrugs again. "Understandable. There's not a lot of gay players, much less anyone who is one hundred percent out of the closet."

"But you're not looking for anything permanent," Seth says matter-of-factly. "Got a guy somewhere else?"

"Nope. If I had him, would I be out here with you?" Dave jokes, grinning to take the sting out of his words. 

"Fair enough!" Seth laughs. "Sit and listen or Frisbee and listen?"

Dave stands up. "Frisbee, definitely."

 

**Tuesday, April 16th, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Taylor**

“Sex!” Casey announces loudly, when the room won’t quiet down. The chatter cuts off immediately, and everyone swivels to look at Casey, who glances over at Taylor and adds, “That got their attention.”

“As long as you all realize we’re not engaging in any sexual activities,” Taylor says, smiling brightly. “But yes, today’s meeting, as most of you know, is about safe sex.” There’s a little more chatter, more like everyone laughing under their breath, and Taylor shakes his head slightly. 

“If you’re having sex, it’s important to be responsible, so you don’t make yourself and other people sick,” Casey says. “So today, we’re talking about—Miles, stop it—things you can do to be responsible.”

“I’m not doing anything,” Miles insists.

“And, of course, what form that responsibility takes varies,” Taylor adds, nodding. “Which is why there’s multiple things over there.” He gestures to the desk beside the snack table. “Condoms, dental dams, and some individual lube packets. I also got the KMart to give me an empty box of one of those at-home HIV tests, just so you can see it. Sorry, too expensive for PFLAG to give away.”

“They’re _visual aids_ ,” Casey stresses. “That means don’t take them until the meeting’s over, at least, or people won’t be able to see them, okay?”

“The at-home HIV test doesn’t test for any other STIs.” Taylor feels like he has to point that out. “So it’s not a substitute for testing at a doctor’s office, health department, or clinic, but some people prefer to keep their HIV status out of their medical records.”

“There’s a place in Dayton that does testing, it’s like fifteen minutes,” Casey says. “I don’t like blood, so getting blood drawn isn’t fun, but it’s really not that big a deal, and it’s better than maybe having something wrong with you and not knowing. So, there’s no excuse to not get tested.” He makes an exasperated sound. “ _Miles!_ I’m going to send you out of this meeting!”

“I’m not doing anything, Cherry,” Miles says. “I’m just sitting here, not making any noise at all.” He grins at Casey like he knows what he’s saying isn’t true.

“You’ll have to sit in the hall like they used to make us do in middle school,” Casey says. 

Taylor rolls his eyes and looks over at Rick, who shakes his head slowly. Poor Rick’s even heard them going at it before, which at least Taylor has been spared. Taylor can’t decide if he should keep a close eye on Miles, or turn in the other direction. “And while, yeah, you hear a lot about risk groups for STIs, everyone in this room should know their status and have a clean bill of health. Everyone in this _school_. This is important for those of you who represent the ‘A’ and the ‘S’, too.”

Roger raises his hand, and Taylor nods at him to go ahead. “What if you’re not doing anything at all? Do you still need to get tested for a baseline or something, like they have you do with some other things?”

“That’s a good question,” Taylor says, grinning at Roger for a second, “but luckily for anyone who isn’t sexually active yet, the answer’s no. Oh, and speaking of that. Sexually active. Anyone want to tell me what they think that covers?”

“Sex!” someone calls out from across the room, and someone else counters with, “Blowjobs!”

“I don’t know if that’s a helpful pair of answers or not,” Taylor admits with a laugh. “What else?”

“A whole long list of stuff I don’t want to mention in front of Ms. Pillsbury-Schuester!” Brooklyn says. “ _Lady_ stuff, which doesn't include blowjobs!”

“Does second base count?” one of the freshmen asks. “Or does it not count until third?”

“Is third base over or under the clothes?” the kid next to the freshman asks. “I never can remember.”

“Off-topic,” Taylor sighs. “And for our purposes, we’re talking about any activity that can transmit an STI. Interestingly, that means that anything over the clothes doesn't really necessitate getting tested – but you want to keep in mind something like oral herpes even when you’re just kissing.”

“I’m sending a stack of paper around. It has the health department’s contact information, the name and number of the place in Dayton, and some websites,” Casey says, unclipping a bunch of papers from the PFLAG binder. “Probably you shouldn't just randomly Google diseases, because it’ll freak you out. They have photographs. You might not ever have sex ever if you look at too many of those photographs.” When he hands the papers to his list, he looks over at Miles and says, “Miles Brown! Hall! Now!”

“But I’m not _doing_ any—”

Casey glares at Miles and points in the direction of the door, and Miles sighs, but he gathers up his things and stomps in the direction of the door. Before he closes it behind himself, though, he gives Casey a huge grin. 

Taylor rolls his eyes again. As much as they’ll all miss Miles once he graduates, it’ll be a lot easier to run a PFLAG meeting without him and Casey flirting with each other the entire time. “And if any of you need trans-specific resources on safe sex, I do have some; just email me or contact me outside the meeting.”

“Sorry about that,” Casey says. “Now that I've banished Miles to the hall, we can explain about the stuff on the table. Miles already knows about all that stuff, anyway, so it’s better that he’s in the hall.”

“And he probably doesn't need any free samples,” Taylor says dryly. 

“No, he’s set,” Casey agrees, obviously trying hard to keep a serious look on his face. “Free samples would just encourage him to misbehave during meetings.”

Alicia shakes her head slowly. “My brother doesn’t need _any_ encouragement to misbehave.”

Casey’s serious look breaks then, and he smiles at Alicia like he not only disagrees, but considers himself to be sufficient encouragement. “As long as he behaves during the _meeting_ ,” he says. 

Taylor’s pretty sure he’s going to strain his eyes, as many times as he’s been rolling them. Casey should really just go join Miles in the hall, and then go… wherever it is they go. He looks at Casey and gestures towards the door, eyebrow raised. “Did you want to go check on him and make sure he was behaving out there?”

Casey looks like he’s pretending to give it careful consideration. “Well, once these papers have gone around, it probably would be good to make sure he’s not out there being, um. Disruptive,” he says. “I could go check on that.”

“Right.” Taylor nods a few times. “Well. Back to the visual aids.”

 

**Saturday, April 20th, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Miles**

Miles picks Casey up a little after 2:30, and he can tell Casey showered after work, because he doesn’t smell like a latté and his hair is still damp and curling around his jaw.

“You ever gonna get that mop cut, Cherry?” Miles asks, as Casey buckles his seatbelt.

“No. I’m going to grow it out forever, until I look like mountain folk and set a Guinness World Record for the longest time ever to go without a haircut,” Casey says.

“Alright, alright,” Miles says, shaking his head. “Don’t have to get sassy.”

“You’ll be sorry when I have famous hair and you’re the one who tried to get me to cut it,” Casey answers with an exaggerated sigh.

“I sure will,” Miles agrees. “You planning on tying it up with a ribbon for prom? I mean, you don’t have to worry about matching it to your prom date’s dress or anything.”

Casey giggles. “That’s true! No dresses. Or dates.”

Miles frowns at him, but does his best to keep him voice casual. “I kind of thought you were going to prom with me. Got you a ticket, didn’t I?”

“Because you told me to buy tickets for Taylor and Maci,” Casey says. “And sure, I’m going with you. I thought we were all going together.”

“I don’t mean riding together, Cherry,” Miles says. “I swear, I know you’re smart, but you’re dense sometimes, aren’t you? I want you to be my prom date. Actual prom date type of prom date, not a couple of guys going to hang out together and maybe fuck after. I only get one senior prom, you know? I want you to be my date.”

Casey doesn’t answer at first, and Miles can’t quite bring himself to look over at him, just in case he might see an expression he can’t really handle seeing on Casey’s face right now. The silence stretches for a few blocks, and they’re almost at Rick’s house before Casey says, almost to himself, “People think you’re my boyfriend.”

“Yeah,” Miles says. God knows he’s heard it from enough people, everybody making assumptions about what’s going on between the two of them, like they think Casey’s ever going to feel about _anybody_ like that. Anybody who isn’t Dave Karofsky, anyway. “I know they think that. Doesn’t matter to me what they think. We know how things are with us, and whatever other people think, well… that’s their business, not ours. I want you to go to prom with me. Let me take you on a real date, Cherry.”

Casey goes quiet again. Miles still can’t look at him, and is just starting to mentally kick himself for even asking when Casey says, “Yes. I’ll go to prom with you,” his voice serious, almost formal. “I’d like that.”

Miles grins at Casey. “Dinner and dancing, Cherry. We’ll get all fancy and have a great old time. Plus, all the fun after-prom stuff.”

Casey blushes a little as he smiles back. “You might be sorry about the dancing part. And the getting fancy part, too. I think I’m going to look weird in a tuxedo.”

“Lies! Everybody looks good in a tuxedo! Just you watch, even Foots’ll look good.” Miles parks in Rick’s driveway and honks the horn. “Well, as good as Foots can look, anyway.”

Rick hurries out of his house and down the driveway, climbing into the backseat as he says, “Brown, you know my mama doesn’t like it when you honk for me.”

“Doesn’t she?” Brown asks, cutting his eyes over to Casey and winking. Casey starts to giggle and clamps his hand over his mouth to stifle it. “Shoot. I guess I just keep on forgetting that.”

“Taylor’s already texted me three times,” Rick says. “I told him you were probably, uh…" He coughs once, like he realizes he’s saying too much. “Something.”

“I was picking Cherry up,” Miles says. “He had to work and then de-coffee himself. Believe me, everybody should be thankful he got de-coffeed.”

“Hey!” Casey protests. “It’s not that bad.”

“Are you kidding? Just smelling you after work makes me jittery,” Miles says cheerfully as he heads towards Taylor’s. Casey makes a little squawk of protest, and Rick laughs at him, which makes Miles consider reaching back and thumping Rick—an urge he resists, barely—for laughing, even though Casey’s indignant noises usually make Miles laugh, too. It’s true, too; post-Starbucks Casey smells like he was doused in espresso and then rolled in coffee grounds, and as much as Miles likes coffee, he likes Casey-smelling Casey better than he likes coffee-smelling Casey.

When Miles pulls into Taylor’s driveway, Taylor’s slouched on his front porch, drumming his fingers against his phone. He jumps up and runs over, climbing in the back next to Rick. “Finally, guys.”

“I didn’t give anybody a specific time, you know,” Miles points out. “I just said some time between two and three. It’s 2:41. That’s between.”

“Uh-huh.” Taylor shrugs. “So which tuxedo place are we going to? The one in the mall or not in the mall?”

“There’s one not in the mall?” Rick asks, sounding mystified.

“I didn’t know there was one that _wasn’t_ not in the mall,” Casey confesses. 

“Brown?” Taylor says, sounding perplexed.

“We’re going to the place over on West,” Miles says. “Mall’s a mess on a Saturday.”

“Cool.” Taylor nods. “For the record, I’m not wearing a pink vest or a pink tie.”

“Me either!” Casey says. 

“I guess I would if Alicia said I had to,” Rick admits. “She didn’t, though. She just told me I’m not allowed to wear anything with a bolo tie.”

“I wouldn’t wear that either,” Casey says.

“Did she tell you not to wear cowboy boots?” Taylor asks Rick. “I bet she doesn’t want you to wear cowboy boots, either, if she said no bolo tie.”

“She did not say anything about my shoes,” Rick says slowly. “So that could mean the boots are still on the table.” 

Miles parks outside the formalwear place. “Now, I expect every single one of you to be on your best behavior, ’cause if I have to go over to the mall and do this all over again, I’m not gonna be real happy with any of you.”

“Guess you and Casey should have separate dressing rooms, then, right, Rick?” Taylor says, grinning as he climbs out of the car.

“I don’t know how to put tuxedo pieces together!” Casey says, sounding a little bit on the panicky side.

“Relax, Cherry. I’ll help you with everything. You just go on and ignore Taylor,” Miles assures him. “We can behave ourselves just fine.” He grins at Casey. “Mostly.”

“Dangit, Brown!” Rick says. “I already know way more about your life than I ever needed to know.”

“I’m just wondering when Brown became a tuxedo expert,” Taylor says, pulling the door open with a flourish.

“I’m just used to more complex clothing, is all,” Miles says. “Plus, I have a _way_ better eye for color than the rest of you.”

The four of them traipse into the formalwear place, and the three ladies who obviously work there don’t look thrilled to see them. Miles gives them a smile, so at least the irritated looks fade, and he and Casey head to one end of the tuxedo section with one of the ladies, and Rick and Taylor go to the other end with another of the ladies. Miles starts pulling a couple of tuxes out to compare them side by side, and Casey just side-eyes the rack like the tuxedos might have hidden agendas or explosives in them, and they’re only a few minutes into the process when they hear Rick whoop in what sounds like excessive happiness.

“Found mine!” Rick announces.

“Foots,” Miles calls across the store. “We’ve been here five minutes and you haven’t tried a single thing on, so I doubt you’ve found an appropriate tuxedo already. Can’t just grab the first thing off the rack and call it done.”

“I never did!” Rick insists. “But this one’s perfect, Brown, I can tell. It looks _classy_.”

“It’s true,” Taylor says. “He didn’t grab the first one he saw, I mean.”

Miles facepalms, shakes his head, and mutters, “Oh sweet Jesus, I don’t know that I even wanna know what he’s got over there.”

“It looks sort of, um. Tan.” 

Miles glances over at Casey, who is watching Rick with his head cocked slightly to the side. “What do you mean, _tan_?” Miles asks.

“I didn’t know tuxedos came in that color,” Casey answers, raising and lowering one shoulder in a shrug. “Maybe it will be nice.”

“Tan tuxedo,” Miles says, looking up towards the ceiling. “Alicia’s gonna kill him. She might kill me, too, for not stopping him.”

“You reckon they rent hats here?” Rick says, still loudly enough that it’s obvious he’s talking to Miles. “I think this suit needs a hat.”

“Of course it does,” Miles sighs. He turns back to the two tuxedos he’d pulled out to compare the cut. “You doing okay over there, Cherry?”

“They all look the same. They’re all black and they all look the same.”

“No they don’t. They don’t look anything the same,” Miles says. “Look, that one over there has completely different lapels. And the number of buttons is different.”

“I don’t know which part is the lapel,” Casey admits. “I don’t think I’m very good at this. Maybe I should re-evaluate this whole prom situation. We could find something to do that doesn’t involve renting any clothing.”

“Uh-uh, Cherry. No way,” Miles says, putting his arm around Casey’s shoulders. “No backing out just ’cause you’re a little intimidated by the tuxes. Here, I’ll pick out a couple for you. How’s that sound?”

Casey doesn’t stop eyeballing the tuxedos suspiciously, but he does nod. “Alright. If I look stupid, you can’t make me go, though.”

“I’m telling you, nobody looks stupid in a tux,” Miles insists. “Okay, maybe Foots, but I’m thinking that’s only a possibility because you said it was tan.”

Miles sifts through the racks and hands three tuxedos to Casey for him to try on, before taking him by the shoulders and directing him to the changing room. Miles is still comparing another few for himself when Taylor speaks up. “We’re finished!” he says, grinning. “You two are kind of slow.”

“Yeah, and we aren’t trying on any tan suits, either,” Miles says. “If you’re happy grabbing any old thing, more power to you. I’m trying to make a statement with my look.”

Taylor laughs. “What statement? That you took a long time? I look good.” He shrugs nonchalantly.

“You’ve got the height, guess you probably can pull off a variety of looks,” Miles says, a little begrudgingly, since the whole height thing’s sort of a sore spot for Casey, especially since Taylor doesn’t seem to be anywhere near done growing and Casey seems like he might be dead set on staying teensy.

“Hey, Brown!” Rick says, emerging from the changing rooms. “That lady said they _do_ rent hats! She even showed me a couple of ’em.”

“Foots, I swear. You’re gonna have to buy Alicia a corsage made out of solid gold to make up for that suit.”

“Corsages are flowers, right?” Rick asks. “Shit, I forgot all about flowers. Taylor, did you remember about flowers?”

“Yeah, I don’t think I’m going to try to match Maci’s dress with the flowers, either,” Taylor says with a slight wince.

“Look, I was already planning on putting something nice together for Cherry,” Miles says. “You want me to get something for the girls, too? I can talk to my dad and see what they’ve got.” He pauses, then frowns. “And don’t tell Cherry I in any way just compared him to the girls.”

“Maci’s dress is fuchsia,” Taylor says with a little shrug. “Good luck with that.”

“Fuchsia’s nothing,” Miles scoffs. “That’s easy to come up with.” 

“Miles?” Casey’s voice comes from the direction of the changing rooms, and Miles gives Taylor a big grin.

“If you boys’ll excuse me. Looks like Cherry needs a little help with his tux.”

 

 **Tuesday, April 30th, 2013: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Dave waves absently at Ty as they leave the dining hall, heading towards the middle of campus, which is usually less crowded by that point of the day. He finds a bench and sits down, leaning against the tree next to it as he calls Casey. 

“Hi!” Like he usually does when he answers the phone, Casey sounds a little out of breath.

“Hey,” Dave says. “Still in danger of Lima floating away?”

“The deluge has ended, but I’m not deflating my raft yet. Is everything still yellow in Atlanta?”

“We’re shifting from yellow to slightly greener yellow. Ty insists that it’ll stop, sooner or later. You should see our practice uniforms, though. It looks like we have two: gold and lighter gold.”

“Gold is a good color for you. It’s a good color, just, um. You know. In general,” Casey says. “But that’s good, that it’s not so yellow anymore. How’s the studying going?”

“Finals,” Dave groans. “If they haven’t killed us earlier in the semester, they’ll get us with finals.”

“Don’t die! You’re my only outside perspective on the world!” Casey exclaims. “It’s the only reason I have hope that there’s really life outside of Lima. The news could just be a lie.”

“Like _The Truman Show_ ,” Dave agrees. “It could just be the Lima show, and they extend the set a bit for some trips. I mean, technically I didn’t drive more than a mile off I–75 on the way down.”

“Oh, that movie was so sad,” Casey says, sounding very sad. “I don’t think I really liked it.”

“There’s some other movie it always makes me think of.” Dave frowns and then shrugs. “Oh well. Can’t remember. But yeah, hopefully I’ll survive finals and live to fight another day. Or another class, anyway.”

“Yes, I bet you’re glad the semester’s almost over. You need a break.”

“Well, I won’t get— oh, yeah.” Dave stops himself. “Yeah. I, uh, I guess I just forgot to mention it before. I’m staying here for a class over the summer. Physics.”

Casey doesn’t respond right away. Dave pulls the phone away, just to make sure they haven’t been disconnected, then puts it back to his ear. Eventually, Casey says, “Oh.”

“Apparently not many players end up taking physics, and they recommend taking it over the summer because it’s another one of those they use to weed people out of engineering, I guess.” Dave sighs. “They’re always full of great advice on how I’m mucking up their great plan for athletes.”

“Yes, I guess… I guess it makes sense, then. To, um, stay,” Casey says quietly.

“I never realized how much they expect… well.” Dave sighs again, because it’s not anyone else’s fault that Dave actually believed the spiel about _student_ -athletes and what times of year there were commitments to be on campus. Dave should have been more skeptical. Asked a few more questions.

“You haven’t been back in a really long time,” Casey says. “It’s just been such a long time.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m gonna try to find a weekend between now and August, drive up for at least a few days, anyway.” Dave pauses. “So let me know if Coach is taking you on a vacation or anything.”

“I don’t think we’re really going anywhere,” Casey says, still sounding subdued. “I think I might be teaching some swimming classes this summer, so… So, anytime. I’ll be around anytime, just tell me when you’re coming.” He pauses for a second, then adds, “I miss you.”

“I miss you too, Case.” Dave shakes his head slightly. “You should get Coach to take you somewhere, though.” If Casey’s not going to be going anywhere, though, Dave can probably surprise him – and it also means Dave can seize whatever opportunity ends up cropping up, regardless of how much lead time Dave has. 

“Nowhere I can think of that I want to go,” Casey says. “Besides, if I go too far, I’d just run into the wall, anyway.”

“But think about it,” Dave teases. “You could at least take pictures and prove it to the rest of them, Case.” He tries to sound light-hearted, even though the idea of a wall is actually a little depressing. “Documentary film.”

“The only ones who’d believe it are the ones who would get out anyway,” Casey sighs. “I guess I’ll just let everybody else be happy and not know that the sky’s just painted on the inside of a dome.”

“I wish the people in charge of the show would let us have better weather, then. Snow, rain, all of that. Couldn’t we just have sun all the time?” Dave asks. “No, better. Order the weather for the day.”

“I don’t think anybody else would like what I ordered,” Casey mutters. 

“You’d have to be better than Ty,” Dave says. “He’d order snow all winter.”

“More two-inch blizzards?” Casey asks, his suddenly-cheerful tone sounding slightly forced. 

Dave winces slightly but shakes his head. “Nah. Probably a whole four inches. He’d be quite daring.”

“Wow. They might even have to buy real hats, David!”

Dave laughs. “Don’t hold your breath.”

 

**Saturday, May 4th, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

Miles had said he’d be there to pick Casey up at six, but Casey starts watching the door with increasing desperation from about 5:30 onward. While he has thus far been able to keep Monty from taking pictures, he knows the moment the doorbell rings, all bets are off. Tuxedos should probably come with masks to keep people from taking too many pictures. Monty keeps wandering by the windows and peeking through the blinds. 

“Is that a limousine?” Monty asks, sounding absolutely thrilled. “Casey, I didn’t know you were going in a limousine!”

“I don’t think we are,” Casey says. “It must be somebody else’s limousine.”

“I’m not sure how they’re going to back out of the driveway, either way,” Shannon remarks. She frowns a little and leans towards the window. “Nah, Casey, I think that is for all of you.”

“Ohmigod, stop looking out the windows!” Casey says. “Don’t do that! Why do _I_ have to have the weird family?”

Monty and Shannon exchange some mysterious look, but they do at least make a show of stopping looking out the window, even if they don’t actually step away from it. The doorbell rings shortly thereafter, and Casey is bolting to the door when Monty says, “Absolutely not!”

“No,” Casey says. “Uncle Monty, _no_.”

“Yes. You are absolutely not leaving this house without having your picture taken,” Monty insists.

“And you can’t open the door yourself!” Shannon says, brushing past Casey to station herself in front of the door. 

“This isn’t _Pretty in Pink_ and I am _not a girl_!” Casey says, stomping his foot once. “It’s just Miles. It’s just prom. It’s just—”

“Oh, doesn’t he look handsome!” Monty says, peering out the window again. “That is a very snazzy suit.”

“ _Uncle Monty_ ,” Casey says. “Please stop looking out the window. He can probably see you looking at him!”

“You only get to go to prom once. Or twice,” Shannon amends. Then she smiles a little. “I thought it was just Miles, Casey.”

“It _is_ , but you can’t just stare at his suit! It’s weird!” Casey says. “Aunt Shannon, come on, open the door.” He bounces in place a little and wishes they’d just go back to the kitchen, or their room, or the backyard. Or Mars.

“He hasn’t knocked yet,” Shannon says. “I’ll answer the door, not open it.”

“He rang the bell! Why are you two so _weird_?”

“That’s the kind of question that doesn’t have an answer, I think,” Shannon says, looking off to one side before she shakes herself. “Anyway.” She opens the door and smiles at Miles. “Miles Brown! Come in!”

Miles’ voice comes from the other side of Shannon. “I’ve got Alicia and them out in the limo, so if Casey’s ready, I could just get him and—”

“Nonsense!” Monty calls out. “Come in and get your picture taken. In fact, go get your sister and her southern gentleman boyfriend, and… who else?”

“Taylor and Maci,” Miles says, peering around Shannon. “Well, damn, Cherry! You clean up alright.”

“Why is _everyone_ so weird?” Casey says.

“I’ll just go get Alicia and everybody,” Miles offers. “You stay right there, Cherry.”

“I have to stay right here!” Casey calls after him. “They won’t let me leave!”

Shannon laughs. “Yeah, you’re suffering, kid.”

“I _am_!” Casey insists. “I’m suffering!”

“Just a few pictures, Casey,” Monty assures him. “Then all of you children can go enjoy your prom.”

“I _hate_ pictures!”

“Which is why we barely have any,” Monty says, matter-of-factly. “Thus, you and all of your friends will be thoroughly photographed this evening.”

“I’m going to _die_ ,” Casey groans. “I will _die_ and you’ll have to bury me at sea!”

“At the pool,” Shannon says.

“Bury me at pool,” Casey corrects himself. 

“Ooh, you are whiny tonight!” Miles says, reappearing in the doorway. “I brought everybody. Be sure to compliment Foots on his very fine hat.”

“Shut up, Brown! You just wish you’d thought of it first!” Rick insists. He is, in fact, wearing some sort of brown hat that matches the vest he’s wearing with his tan suit. “I look dapper.”

“You look something, anyway,” Miles agrees. “But that’s alright. Not everybody can look this good.”

“I think you were going for resplendent,” Taylor muses. 

“I don’t think he made it, though,” Alicia says, giggling.

“No, I think he did,” Casey says, because Miles in his tuxedo looks… really, really good. “I think he made it.” 

Maci starts giggling maniacally, and Casey starts to blush, but Miles just looks pleased with himself. “Thanks, Cherry. Resplendent was totally what I was going for.”

“Casey, Miles, you come stand over here,” Monty directs. Miles takes Casey by the wrist and leads him to where Monty has the camera out like a digital firing squad. “Casey, do be a dear and try not to look so disgruntled.”

“That’s just how my face looks,” Casey grumbles, as Miles puts an arm around him and grins at the camera. The flash goes off, and Casey honestly can’t say whether or not he managed to look less disgruntled. Monty takes a few more pictures of Casey and Miles together, then a few of just Casey wherein he _knows_ he looks disgruntled, and then a bunch of the whole group, some of the other two couples, some of just the boys, and then some of just the girls, and by the time Monty puts the camera down, Casey is absolutely certain he never, ever wants to be famous and have to deal with paparazzi. 

“Can we go now?” Casey asks. “Please?”

Monty looks at Shannon. “Have we ruined their young lives enough for one evening?”

“If we change our minds, I’ll call Will during and have him pass along messages,” Shannon says with a grin.

“ _Ohmigod_ , what is _wrong_ with this family?” Casey says, but Monty and Shannon just look amused. “And no Facebook!”

“Just a few,” Monty counters.

“Not any,” Casey says.

“How about just one of you and just one of the group?” Monty asks. “Please? Cornelia thinks we left you in a bus station somewhere, because there are never any pictures.”

“Fine, but just two,” Casey says. “Pick the one where I look the most gruntled, I guess.”

“I don’t think that’d be any of ’em,” Rick muses. “I don’t think you ever look gruntled.”

“Nah, he looks gruntled sometimes,” Miles says. “Trust me, Foots.”

“We’re leaving!” Casey says, hooking Miles’ arm in his. “Before they start _recording_ or something!” He herds everybody out the front door and towards the limo, which he still isn’t sure how they all ended up with.

 

**Saturday, May 4th, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Rick**

“The music was better at that dance last year,” Ricks tells Alicia. “They should have gotten the old glee club to come back and sing for prom. They couldn’t have the regular glee club do it, ’cause a lot of y’all are here.”

Alicia laughs. “I bet they couldn’t afford them! Most of them are probably taking finals or something. College students get done for the summer earlier.”

“Yeah, they’re all gonna be famous and stuff, I guess,” Rick says. “Still, the music was way better. Too bad Brown hadn’t introduced me to you before then. I could’ve taken you.”

“That’s probably _why_ he hadn’t introduced us, knowing Miles,” Alicia says, shaking her head. “But— ooh! I love this one!” She grabs Rick’s hands and pulls him towards the dance floor. “We’ll have to find a place for your hat later.”

“It’s a great hat,” Rick says. He puts his arms around Alicia and does his best to remember all that dance stuff. 

“It is!” Alicia winks at him. “I made sure to tell Miles a few times how much I liked that hat.”

“Brown just doesn’t know what a decent suit’s supposed to look like,” Rick says. “But I’ve been to the races. I know how you’re supposed to dress for a formal occasion, especially when it’s warm out!”

“Exactly!” Alicia giggles and waves at Maci as they pass Maci and Taylor. Maci waves back and hollers something at Alicia that Rick can’t quite make out over the music. Rick just shrugs at Taylor, like ‘what can you do?’, and he and Alicia dance on by.

“It’s a little sad,” Rick says, after they’ve been dancing for two or three songs’ worth.

“What is?” Alicia asks, wrinkling her nose a little.

“It’s like a last hurrah or something. Next year it’ll just be me, Taylor, and Casey, and then the year after that, Taylor’ll be the only dude left.”

Alicia laughs for a second. “Oh, it’s just my brother. You know he’ll end up here weekends sometimes.”

“Yeah, but it won’t be the same,” Rick says. “Everybody leaving. Everybody growing up. It’s just a little sad, is all. I sorta wish it could always be like this.”

“ _Just_ like this?” Alicia teases. “Or maybe like it will be later?”

“Everybody together and happy and…" Rick pauses. “What’s happening later?”

Alicia giggles again. “It _is_ a nice night, isn’t it, Daniel? What would you like to happen later?”

“Well, I figured we’d dance, and then we’d watch them pick out the prom king and queen, and then maybe we’d all go get milkshakes after or something like that, before we go back over to your place,” Rick says. “Then I figured we’d make out until your brother yelled at us.”

“ _I_ thought we’d send Miles and Casey off as soon as we could, so we don’t have to worry about anyone yelling.”

“I don’t think that stops the yelling from happening, Alicia,” Rick points out, shaking his head. “Your brother needs a muzzle or something. Or that stuff they put up on walls in recording studios that look like the thingies that go on top of mattresses.”

“Maybe both.” Alicia nods. “But he’ll be distracted. It’s his _senior_ prom, after all.”

“No, the distracting’s the problem!” Rick explains. “Maybe they should go over to Casey’s place instead.”

“Ohh, well.” Alicia frowns. “You want to explain that one to Coach Beiste, though?”

“Nope!” Rick grins. “But if they were over there, it wouldn’t be our problem!”

Alicia laughs. “At least not for one night!”

“I guess we can’t _make_ ’em go anywhere, though,” Rick says. “So we’re back to the yelling. Yelling wasn’t what you had planned for later, right?”

“Only the good kind of yelling, Daniel.”

 

**Saturday, May 4th, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Miles**

Miles brushes a stray strand of hair out of Casey’s face, and when it falls back down, he tucks it behind Casey’s ear. “Still say you could have used a ribbon, made it look extra fancy,” Miles says.

“ _Miles_ ,” Casey says. “I’m not putting things in my hair. An elastic band is fine. No ribbons.”

“I’m just saying, if it gets much longer, you could braid it.”

“Shut up, Miles.”

“You could braid it in pigtails _with_ ribbons, Cherry,” Miles says, sliding his hand up Casey’s waist and digging his thumb in a little bit to tickle. Casey squeals and looks irritated, but he doesn’t pull away or stomp, which means he’s not really mad. “You’d look cute with pigtails.”

“Well, you’d look cute with… with…" Casey doesn’t seem like he’s able to come up with a good enough retort, because he just huffs and turns pink and shakes his head. “Something that’s not pigtails!”

“That’s true. I would not look at all cute with pigtails,” Miles agrees. “Maybe with— oh sweet Jesus, what is going on here?” 

Miles and Casey suddenly find themselves mobbed by a group of Cheerios, mostly juniors, but a few of Alicia’s classmates mixed in, probably here with their boyfriends or maybe girlfriends. Miles doesn’t exactly keep track, since the little red business cards—and yeah, okay, maybe a little bit Casey—mostly make it a non-issue at McKinley. Jenni, that Annie girl, and another girl that Miles doesn’t have even the slightest idea what name to put to her, all sort of grab a hold of him. Annie tries to get Casey by the arm, too, but he looks horrified and takes a step backwards. 

“Miles?” Casey says, looking askance at the girls. “I’m going to, um. Drinks.”

“Hey, wait a minute, Cherry,” Miles says, but Casey’s already zipped off in the direction of the refreshments. “Cherry!” He shakes his head and turns to Jenni. “There a reason you terrified my date in the middle of my prom?”

“We want a dance!” the Annie girl says. “We’d have danced with your boyfriend, too, but he ran away.”

“’Cause you girls freaked him out,” Miles says, frowning at them. “He doesn’t like being grabbed. Especially not by a bunch of girls he doesn’t even know.” 

“You should give me a dance at least,” Jenni says. “I didn’t freak anybody out. _You_ like being grabbed.”

“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t,” Miles says, a little tersely, “but it’s poor form to grab a man right in front of his date.” Jenni laughs, and a new song starts, so Miles does let her pull him close enough to dance. They chit-chat a little, mostly about Miles heading down to Clemson, and when he looks over in the direction of the refreshments table, Miles sees Casey standing there with a glass of punch, glaring at Jenni. “Alright, you had your dance,” Miles tells her. “Now Cherry’s all pissed, so you go back to your girlfriends and I’ll go calm him down.”

“High maintenance,” Jenni says. “Never would have guessed that was your type.”

“He’s not a type,” Miles sighs. “And you know, he’s not even really my boyfriend.”

“Sure he’s not,” Jenni says over her shoulder and she heads back over to her heart-dot-i girlfriends. Miles shakes his head and walks over to where Casey’s glowering over his cup of punch.

“They serving up straight lemon juice this year?” Miles asks. “’Cause that is one sour face.”

“I wish we didn’t have the limousine,” Casey says. “We’re being held hostage by people with entirely different prom-related agendas.”

“I’m not so sure about that, but, hey. Sorry about those girls. I don’t know what their problem was, grabbing at us like that.” Miles puts his arm around Casey’s waist, and Casey relaxes, leaning against Miles. “What do you say we have a few more dances, then we start rounding up our band of unruly children and see if they want to head home?”

“Maybe two more dances.”

“Three, and we’ll stop and get milkshakes on the way home,” Miles offers.

“We stop to _get_ them,” Casey says firmly. “But we drink them at home.”

“We drink them on the way home, so we’ve got nothing else to do when we get there,” Miles counters.

“Deal.”

 

**Sunday, May 5th, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

Miles’ lamp is still on, but neither of them has made any effort at all to stretch out enough in that direction to turn it off, and Casey’s not sure either of them will. It wouldn’t be the first night they’ve slept with the lamp on, both of them too tired or too wrapped around each other to make the minimal effort. The lamp’s bulb is low enough that it doesn’t prevent either of them from sleeping; nothing really makes much of an impact on whether Casey’s going to sleep or not, honestly, so why worry about a lamp?

The pieces of their tuxedos are strewn across Miles’ bedroom floor, and Casey wonders if they’ll have to separate them out or if they can just return them in one big jumbled-up, sex-smelling pile. Maybe they can just put them in a bag and leave them there.

Miles puts his arm around Casey and pulls him closer, and Casey allows himself to be pulled, tucks himself under Miles’ arm and lets their legs tangle together. He knows better than anyone how fast the school year will end, and how soon after that Miles will be leaving for Clemson. Like most good things in Casey’s life, this thing with Miles has a time limit, too. That was always the point, really.

It doesn’t mean Casey won’t miss him, though. Casey has friends, but not a lot that he’d think of as close friends, and Miles is definitely the closest. Miles is the one he can rely on, the one he seeks out to hang out with—for more than just fucking—and the one he calls when he just needs to feel a little better about life in general. Miles isn’t somebody that Casey cries over.

Casey calls David his best friend, on the rare occasion he discusses him with other people. He and David sometimes refer to each other that way, too, when they talk on the phone. To David, it may be true, but Casey knows that on his own end, it’s just another lie. David hasn’t been just his best friend in a year, probably longer, probably forever. Casey isn’t sure it’s ever been as simple as that, just friends. If Casey lets himself think about it—and he tries so hard not to, he tries to shut it down when it comes into his mind, doesn’t even let himself pretend anymore, because it hurts too much—he’s probably been in love with David from the very first time David walked him to class.

In the spirit of post-prom self-honesty, Casey goes ahead and lets himself think it: Miles is his best friend. David is the man that Casey is in love with, the only one, and probably always will be, and Casey will keep _pretending_ David is his best friend because it’s the closest Casey can get to what he wants. It’s not anywhere near enough.

“That was a damn good prom,” Miles says, his voice drowsy. “Should’ve brought you with me last year.”

“Yeah,” Casey says softly. “It was good.” He traces little circles on Miles’ stomach with his fingertips. Miles twitches, but only a little; he’s already tumbling over the edge into sleep. Last year, David wasn’t speaking to Miles—so, by proxy, neither was Casey—when it was Miles’ prom, and Casey and David didn’t go to David’s prom. Instead, they sent Miles running all over town on crazy errands.

Prom tonight was good. Casey had a great time, riding in the limo with everyone was fun, Miles looked gorgeous, the dancing was nice, and the sex when they got back to Miles’ place was preceded by frantic removal of formalwear, which was kind of fantastic. Casey would still trade all of it for another night like the one he had with David last year, laughing about the silly things they made Miles do, drinking milkshakes, and Casey sleeping soundly through the whole night curled up next to David.

Casey really wonders at what point he’ll stop wanting that. He wonders when the time will come that he can lie in bed with someone and not be thinking about David, when he can have sex with someone without having to make himself _not_ think about David. He’s afraid the answer is never. 

 

**Tuesday, May 14th, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Rick**

Casey may be in the smart kid classes, except for Spanish, but he’s not real good at coming up with ideas for fun stuff to do. Brown’s ideas mostly end with Brown having sex with somebody, usually Casey, which is what Rick tells Brown to explain why he doesn’t get to pick what they’re doing today; he says it before Casey gets there, though, ’cause that wouldn’t be cool to say in front of him. That means Rick’s the one who gets to come up with something fun to do on a Tuesday afternoon while Alicia and Taylor are off at Nationals with the glee club, and what Rick comes up with is skating at Rinky Dinks.

“Seriously, Foots?” Brown asks him, once the three of them are assembled at Brown’s house.

“Yeah, Brown. Seriously,” Rick tells him. “I get to pick, and I pick Rinky Dinks.”

“Why does Rick get to pick?” Rick can hear Casey whispering to Brown. “What’s the rubric for deciding that?” 

Brown gives Rick the stink-eye real quick before shaking his head. “I honestly can’t say, Cherry. Guess it was just his turn,” he says.

“Sure is,” Rick agrees. “It’s my turn, now let’s go rent some skates and eat some of them nachos I keep hearing about.”

“Well, then I’m driving,” Casey insists, so Rick squeezes into the backseat of Casey’s bright yellow car, since there’s no point even trying to call shotgun if Brown’s there. Casey whips out of Brown’s driveway a little too fast, and Rick topples over against the side of the car.

“What’d you do to your upholstery?” Rick asks. “You need to get you some vinyl conditioner or something for back here.”

“Um,” is all Casey says, but Brown starts laughing.

“Foots, some questions are better left unanswered.”

“You two just get stranger and stranger,” Rick sighs.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Casey says in response, which is just proof of how he and Brown really are strange.

Once they get to Rinky Dinks, Brown and Casey go to get skates, and Rick goes and buys the biggest thing of nachos that they have, plus three pops. Before they put their skates on, the three of them drink their pops and eat nachos – Brown with a suspicious look on his face at the things that are supposed to be jalapenos, and Casey one real slow and tiny bite at a time. When they’re done with the nachos, they put on their skates, and roll out onto the rink.

“I really don’t like skating,” Casey announces, but Rick thinks that might be because as soon as Casey’s wheels touch the floor, his feet go out from under him and he lands smack on his butt.

Brown hauls Casey up off the floor, and says, “You hang on to me, and I’ll help you keep your balance. You’ll be fine.”

“I’ve only ever skated one other time,” Casey explains, and Brown gives Rick the stink-eye again, like maybe that’s Rick’s fault, too. Rick doesn’t see why it would be, though; it’s not his fault if Casey and Karofsky didn’t go skating more after Casey’s birthday party last year. Seems like something the two of them _should_ have done.

Rick has taken his brothers and sister to more skating parties this past year than he can even count, and by this point, he’s getting pretty good at skating. Driving them to parties is about the only time Rick’s allowed to use the car, anyway. Rick skates in a circle around Brown and Casey, who take about three or four laps to graduate from Casey about hanging off of Brown to Brown just holding Casey by the wrist and pulling him along like that wooden duck pull-toy Abby used to have.

“See? Isn’t this fun?” Rick says, pulling up beside them the next time he makes it all the way around the circle in the time it takes them to go about fifteen feet.

“Yeah, it’s fun,” Brown says. He doesn’t sound like he really thinks it’s all that much fun, though, and Casey just looks sort of mopey and pitiful.

“You’re not having fun, Casey?” Rick asks him.

“No, it’s fine. It’s fun,” Casey says. “I just don’t have the best balance on roller skaters.”

“I guess not everybody does,” Rick says. “They’re hard to balance on.”

“But some people can balance on them _really_ well,” Casey says. “Maybe even _too_ well,” and then he starts laughing for some reason.

Rick looks at Brown, but Brown doesn’t seem like he gets it any better than Rick does. It’s probably just one of Casey’s smart-people jokes that Rick never understands, so he doesn’t worry too much about it. Instead, he just skates around the circle another few times, all of them before Brown and Casey make it around even once, and then he buys another thing of nachos for all of them to share. This time all three of them chow down. 

 

**Tuesday, May 21st, 2013: Atlanta, Georgia — Ty**

“Did you guys see this one?” Ty asks. “Danny, maybe you should consider artistic shots.” Ty looks up from his laptop to see Danny and Coop battling furiously at Mario Kart. “Just not of that face.”

“What’s wrong with this face?” Danny protests. 

“Looks too much like yours,” Coop says. 

“The tongue sticking out the side of your mouth is a little weird,” Special K says. “Concentrate a little less.”

“Maybe don’t concentrate at all when the Dannycam is on, actually,” Ty says, after a moment of thought. “Just focus on showing your best side.”

“His best side’s the back of his head,” Coop says. “Sorry man, but it’s true.”

“Hey!” Danny protests. “Brit says I look smart. She’d know, ’cause she looks at me a lot when we’re chatting.”

“Never should’ve set you up with that cam,” Coop mutters. “Gave you an unfair advantage.”

“Face it, Coop,” Special K says with a smug grin. “No one wanted to see the Coop Cam.”

“That was a short-lived experiment that should have been shorter,” Ty agrees.

“And one of these days, I’m paying you sumbitches back for that,” Coop says pleasantly. “It’ll be when you least expect it, and I’ll make sure everybody has the info for the live feed.”

“Define ‘everybody’,” Special K laughs. “Pretty sure you don’t even mean the entire campus.”

“Whole team, anyway,” Coop counters. “They can all be shocked and awed by your spartan Mormon lifestyle.” He snorts a laugh to himself. “Sorry, your spartan _Lutheran_ lifestyle.”

“Less bicycles,” Special K says, completely deadpan. 

“Maybe a unicycle. Aren’t Lutherans the ones that want everything ‘alone’?” Ty asks. “So, you know. One wheel, alone.”

“No. No, and no,” Special K says firmly. “No unicycles.”

“I had a unicycle once!” Danny grins. “That was a lot of fun, until I outgrew it. My mom said I couldn’t get a bigger one.”

“Danny, don’t you mean a tricycle?” Coop asks. “And I saw a bear riding a unicycle once, at the circus. Come to think of it, sort of reminds me of you, Special K. We definitely should get you one.”

“I know the difference between uni- and tri-,” Danny says with a frown.

“The Coop Cam could make a comeback,” Special K says mildly.

“I’m going to tape a picture of a unicycle on our door and let the rest of the team decide what that means,” Ty declares. “I’ll start looking for the perfect shot as soon as I see who’s had embarrassing photos posted on Facebook lately!”

“Just so you know, that guy in the fake mustache is _not_ me. I got mistagged,” Coop says. “My head’s too big for a sombrero anyway. They never fit.”

“You know what Brit told me? Sombrero’s just the Mexican word for hat! Any kind of hat,” Danny says, almost marveling.

“Oh, hey, more pictures of Special K’s spartan Ohio friends!” Ty says with a grin. “Looks like Alicia and.” Ty squints. “Marcy-ella? Marc-eela? Posted more prom pictures.”

“Maci. Just call her Maci. That’s Taylor’s girlfriend,” Special K says.

“Taylor’s the tall, skinny one, right?” Ty asks. “Yeah, I remember. Looks a little like Bond.”

Special K laughs. “I’m going to tell Taylor about that. He’d get a kick out of it.”

“But damn, Special K,” Ty whistles. “Casey does hate to have his face in a picture, don’t he?”

“Why?” Special K snorts. “Did he hide his face? Usually it’s just better to get a candid shot of Case.”

“Top of the head, side of the head, back of the head,” Ty reports, flipping through the pictures. He pulls up a couple of them and turns the laptop towards Special K. He’s not sure if the dude with Casey in the top of the head pictures is the Miles douche or not, but it definitely isn’t Taylor or Alicia’s boyfriend, so Ty’ll err on the side of caution. “See?”

Special K looks at the pictures and laughs. “I guess they weren’t quick enough with the candids. Good thing Coach got a few before he left?” He stops and then laughs again. “I wonder what that punch did to him? I should ask him later. Or maybe they didn’t have good snacks.” Special K nods slowly. “Junior prom, the food did suck.”

“Isn’t the food at prom required to suck?” Danny asks. “Aww, shit, I just lost.”

“My prom had great food,” Coop says. He looks over at Ty’s laptop. “That is some kinda face he’s making, though. If my face looked like that, I’d hide from cameras, too.”

Special K frowns at Coop. “He’s making that face because they won’t stop taking pictures, probably. He may have even asked them to stop, but obviously they didn’t.”

“What? Is he a vampire or something, doesn’t wanna be on film?” Coop teases. “Can’t steal his soul, since he’s redheaded and all that.”

“Yeah, that’s why you dye yours,” Special K retorts with a roll of his eyes. “So we won’t figure out you’re soulless.”

Coop snorts. “Yeah, like I look like a redhead,” he says. “Not a single spot on me. Nobody’d ever mistake me for a redhead without all the freckles.”

“You mean that pancake makeup isn’t yours?” Ty says with a laugh. “I was sure it was.”

“Naw, it’s Danny’s, for when he’s on the cam,” Coop says. “He likes to get done up like a news anchor.”

“Hey, we can get you a toupée then!” Special K says, obviously trying to change the subject. “And one of those news anchor ties.”

Danny frowns. “Wouldn’t that look kinda silly with my T-shirts?”

“Naw, it just lends them a certain formality,” Coops say. “That way people know to take you seriously, Danny.”

Ty exchanges a glance with Special K, who shrugs. “Well, then why don’t you losers let Special K and I take our turns, and you can help Danny get formal, Coop.”

“Hey, now.” Danny puts the controller down and grins. “I could just get one of those tuxedo T-shirts!”


	12. Summer 2013

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summer break, and a summer full of breaks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warnings: Minimally-graphic depictions of sex activities, homophobic language**
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>  **Authors' Note:** Remember to click on the links! We've hidden some stuff in the story!

**Sunday, June 2nd, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

Miles’ Ma tried to make him keep the cap and gown on for the party, but Miles hid them in the Lemon after she took a few pictures, so he’s just in normal clothes for his graduation party. Miles’ Ma invited everybody, including all of Miles’ teachers, possibly every single teacher he ever had. Luckily, most of the teachers didn’t show up, except for Shannon, who technically is Miles’ coach and not his teacher. 

“Now you boys be sure to try some of the juice!” Miles’ Ma says as she passes Casey. “It’s sparkling today!”

“What do you think she had to put into the juicer to make it sparkle?” Casey whispers to Miles.

“I don’t know, Cherry. A unicorn?”

“I heard that, Miles!”

“I know you did, Ma!” Miles calls back to her. “I meant you to!”

“Alicia told me it was just ginger ale,” Rick says. 

“Foots,” Miles says, shaking his head. “Nobody really thinks it’s a unicorn.”

“I figured it was club soda,” Taylor says, shrugging a little. 

“I guess as long as there aren’t any vegetables in it, it’s fine,” Casey says. “So, wow! You graduated, Miles! That’s so weird!”

“It’d be weirder if he hadn’t, though.” Taylor snorts and looks around. “Have a hard time explaining that one to all these people.”

“Lucky for me, I don’t have to,” Miles says. “Yeah, it feels a little weird to me, too. Strange to think that in a month I’m going to be in South Carolina. I bet it’s going to be really hot.”

“I’m still not sure orange is your color, Miles,” Alicia says sweetly. “You’ll have to send Ma all those pictures she wants so I can decide.”

“I don’t think orange is anybody’s color,” Casey says.

“Nah, every color is my color,” Miles answers, waving his hand dismissively at Alicia. “Don’t you worry about that.”

“I don’t think anybody was worried about that, Brown,” Rick says. 

“Does anybody even wear orange on purpose?” Casey asks. “Not for college things, I mean. Do people wear orange just because they like to wear it?”

“On Halloween?” Taylor says. “Pumpkin shirts or something. Math teachers really like those theme sweaters.”

“Mrs. Wilson had seven different Christmas sweaters,” Casey muses. “One had a baby Jesus on the back made out of pom-poms.”

“Remind me to avoid Mrs. Wilson!” Alicia says, eyes wide.

“Pom-pom Jesus is an interesting fashion statement,” Miles agrees. “Not saying it’s a _good_ one, but it is interesting. And it is a statement.”

“Pom-pom baby Jesus didn’t have a face. It was _so_ weird and creepy!” Casey says.

“Do you reckon he used to have a face and it came off, or was he faceless to start with?” Rick asks.

“I think we’ve already exhausted the topic of pom-pom Jesus and we should move on to something else,” Miles answers, then he makes a face. “Though, speaking of Jesus, oh sweet Jesus, there’s Doroszko and Lawrence. If I have to hear one more time about how unfair the recruiting process is, I can’t say that I can be held responsible for my behavior.”

“You should ask ’em if they’ve had any juice,” Rick suggests. “Hey, you should have your Ma tell ’em about how her juicer works!”

“That’s actually a good idea, Foots,” Miles says, sounding a little surprised. “You all wait right here, and I’ll be right back.” Miles intercepts Doroszko and Lawrence halfway across the room and points them in the directions of his Ma. Casey can’t hear what they’re saying, but Doroszko and Lawrence both look excited as they head towards Miles' Ma. Miles walks back over to stand next to Casey, looking pleased with himself. “Told them that I gave all the credit for my football prowess to Ma’s juice.”

“I bet Aunt Shannon would tell them it’s true,” Casey says. “She told me she’s never been happier to graduate a group of players. Not you, Miles. The other ones.”

“Of course not me,” Miles says, with his no big deal shrug. “I’m the only one that got recruited. I’m on her good list.”

“Also, you’re extremely modest,” Taylor says, very dryly.

“That’s ’cause I take after my Ma!”

 

**Monday, June 10th, 2013: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Dave is surprised when the phone rings as he leaves dinner, because usually no one calls on a Monday. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and answers it quickly. “Hello?”

“Hi!” Casey says. “Are you busy?”

“Nah, just walking back towards the dorm. What’s up?” Dave asks.

“So, you remember how I told you I was going to teach an intermediate swim class this summer?”

“Yeah, was today the first class? How’d it go?”

“They’re _six_!” Casey says, sounding a little indignant. “ _Six_ , David.”

“There’s six of them? That’s not too many, is it?”

“Not six of them. There’s ten of them. _They_ are six. Six years old. Ten six-year-olds!”

“But they’re all in the intermediate class, right? So they know how to listen and stuff?”

“One of them asked me why I was so short!” Casey says, sounding even more indignant. 

Dave coughs to suppress a laugh. “They probably don’t have any room to talk?” he guesses. “Unless they have that Lincoln disease or something.”

“No, David, they’re all very, very small. And another one asked me why my hair was so long and if I ever get haircuts.”

“You should’ve said it was a religious thing and they were very rude to ask.” Dave pauses then laughs. “Or told them you were like Samson. You can’t swim if someone cuts your hair.”

“No, I just told them no,” Casey says. “And then I told them no more questions.”

“How did the actual teaching go?”

“Nobody drowned, so I guess that means it went well,” Casey says. “I was worried they might pee in the pool, though. It seems like something they might do.”

“Tell them the story about the chemical that makes the red ring around ’em,” Dave suggests. “Or offer them stickers. Or both.”

“Do you think stickers would work? Are stickers something they would want? And what _kind_ of stickers?”

“The kind at the Dollar Tree,” Dave laughs. “And get ’em candy for the last class. Tell them they only get the candy if they behave or whatever.”

“Oh! That’s a really good idea!” Casey says. “You’re good at this. I’m not so good at this. They stare a lot. Why do kids do that?”

Dave coughs again, because apparently Casey doesn’t realize that he stares, too. “It’s, uh. All those years volunteering at church, I guess.”

“I just thought that intermediate swim meant middle schoolers,” Casey says. “I don’t know why I thought that. It just seemed like they’d be intermediate. I don’t think of very small people when I think of intermediate anything.”

“I guess their parents started them on beginner level in preschool or something?” Dave says. “Can they at least do what you expected them to be able to do?”

“Well, mainly what I expect them to do is not fall off the kickboards,” Casey says. “I’m just the assistant teacher. But since they didn’t fall off, I guess, um. Yes?”

“That’s something, then. Do you keep the same group all summer?”

“I get another group on Wednesdays. I guess they’ll all be small, too,” Casey sighs. “I wonder if they’ll ask the same questions or if they’ll come up with new ones.”

“New ones,” Dave says. “Definitely new ones.”

“I’ll tell them all that I don’t know the answers. Then I’ll give them your phone number and tell them call you and ask you instead,” Casey says, trying to sound serious. 

“I’ll tell Coop to answer my phone on Wednesday,” Dave laughs. 

“That’s probably a very good idea.”

 

**Saturday, June 22nd, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Miles**

Miles didn’t start this out thinking that ending it would be so hard. It was just supposed to be fun. He and Casey would have a little fun together for however long they both wanted it, and it wouldn’t be a _thing_ , because Miles doesn’t do _things_. Except, of course, it is a _thing_ , he’s known for months now that it’s a _thing_ , and he should have known from the beginning that’s what it was going to be. It was never going to be as casual as he pretended it would be.

It’s later than Miles should be staying up, considering the drive they’re making tomorrow. Alicia’s already gone up to bed. Ma and Dad turned in hours ago. Miles sits there on the sofa with Casey’s head resting on his leg, running his fingers through Casey’s hair while they watch the season finale of that [Frankenstein](http://i.imgur.com/FOJzO.jpg) show that’s still on the DVR. Casey sighs and shifts slightly against Miles as the end credits come on.

“You want to go upstairs, Cherry?” Miles asks quietly, and Casey nods against Miles’ leg. They stand up, and Miles takes Casey by the wrist, leading him upstairs like he doesn’t know exactly where Miles’ room is by this point.

Miles closes the door behind them and pushes Casey back against the door, kissing him without ever letting go of his wrist. Casey pulls on Miles’ shirt, tugging it up, and Miles lets go of Casey so the shirt can pass over his head smoothly and get tossed onto the floor. They don’t get tangled in each other’s clothes anymore. Miles lifts Casey’s shirt over his head and lets it drop while Casey walks them backwards to the bed.

When the back of Miles’ legs hit the edge of the bed, Casey’s hands are already unfastening the front of Miles’ jeans, sliding the zipper down and pushing them down Miles’ hips. Miles thinks about slowing him down—it’s his last night in Lima for who knows how long, it might be the last time they’re together—but another part of him wants it to be quick, like ripping off a band-aid. Fast, maybe a little painful, and then he can move on to the next thing. There’s a next thing; he’s got to move on.

Miles’ jeans hit the floor and Casey’s follow them, then they’re both on the bed, Miles’ hands smoothing down Casey’s back while Casey kisses him. Casey sits up, gives Miles’ shoulder a nudge, and Miles rolls onto his stomach. One kiss on the back of Miles’ neck, and then Casey leans across him, and Miles can hear the nightstand drawer opening and closing, the crinkling of a condom wrapper, the click of a lid.

Casey’s mouth is on the back of Miles’ neck again, and his hands are on Miles’ hips when he pushes inside Miles, a little too fast like he does sometimes when he just can’t wait, like he’s got to have as much as he can get as quickly as he can get it, like he might run out of time. Miles arches his back slightly, moving against Casey, making low noises to fill the silence. Casey’s so quiet when he fucks Miles; Miles wonders if he’s like that with everybody, but that’s one of the things he can’t ask about.

Miles can feel Casey’s lips moving against his neck, then Casey says, “I’m going to miss this.”

This. Not _you_. Just _this_. “I’ll miss you, too, Cherry,” Miles answers him. “You can come visit me.” Casey’s hand wraps around Miles’ dick then, moving it in time to his thrusts, and Miles closes his eyes and lets himself get lost in the feel of Casey’s hand on him, of Casey inside him, and it’s not much longer before Miles comes. Casey holds him tightly, one arm across Miles’ chest, and another few minutes pass before Miles can feel Casey coming, too, his soft cries muffled against Miles’ neck.

Casey pulls away, tosses the condom into the trash, and as Miles rolls onto his back, Casey curls up against Miles’ side. “Goodnight, Miles,” Casey says quietly.

“Night, Cherry,” Miles whispers back. He lies as still as he can until Casey falls into his twitching, whimpering version of sleep, then he stokes Casey’s hair gently for a while before he, too, finally drifts off.

When Miles’ alarm goes off in the morning, Casey’s already gone, headed in to Starbucks to make coffee. Miles takes a quick shower to wash the smell of Casey off of himself, then he, Alicia, Ma, and Dad eat a quick breakfast and load the car. They’re on the road to Clemson before nine. On to the next thing; quick, like ripping off a band-aid. 

 

**Sunday, July 7th, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Rick**

Even when he’s just had to break up with his girlfriend for making out with another dude, Taylor’s always got the best ideas. That’s how they end up in the woods at Faurot Park, eating curly fries and smoking up. 

“What’s Iowa got, anyway?” Taylor grumbles, staring closely at the joint in his hand. “They were drinking _Bud Light_. I can’t even tell my dad that. He’d be ashamed I was dating somebody that would drink Bud Light.”

“What’s so wrong with Bud Light?” Rick asks. “No, really, I wanna know. What’s so wrong with it?”

“Dad says it tastes like piss,” Taylor says real carefully. “But so does the stuff he tries to brew, if you ask me.”

“Can’t say as I’ve ever drank piss to compare it to,” Rick says, taking another hit off the joint and passing it over to Casey, who has a hard time not dropping it, let alone smoking it, because he’s laughing so hard.

“Tucker did. Drink piss, I mean. It was a dare.” Taylor glares at the bag of pot. “That’s why he can’t smoke pot with us. Did I tell you about Tim?”

“Taylor, Tucker, Tim,” Rick says, putting a lot of force behind each T-sound. “That’s real funny, you know that? All y’all with your T-names.”

“Tim went to Traverse City,” Taylor says with a laugh. “That’s even more T-names.”

“That’s just… well, it’s frickin’ hilarious, is what it is,” Rick agrees. “Dammit, Casey, smoke it or pass it, before you drop it.”

“I’m so sorry, Taylor,” Casey says. He takes a hit off the joint, giggling like crazy, but also making a really sad face, so it’s hard to tell if he’s actually sorry for Taylor or not. “That’s so awful. She shouldn’t have done that. The beer _or_ the Iowa boy.”

“I think the beer and the Iowa boy were a matched set. Like.” Taylor frowns. “Salt and pepper shakers.”

“ _Stupid_ salt and pepper shakers,” Casey says sadly, then takes another hit from the joint, giggles again, and hands the joint off to Taylor. 

“Probably put pepper in the salt shaker, that boy,” Taylor says, nodding. “She didn’t even remember his name.”

“ _Pepper_ ,” Rick says. “We’ll just call him Pepper. Bet they don’t even use pepper in Iowa. I didn’t know people even lived in Iowa.”

“Stupid people,” Casey says. “Stupid people live there. It’s like… it’s like _Elida_ , only bigger.”

“And with more corn,” Rick adds. “Stupid corn.”

“That’s why we’re having potatoes to eat,” Taylor says. “Not corn.”

“I _hate_ corn,” Casey says, even though Rick’s seen him eat corn before, so probably that’s just the pot talking. Or maybe he does hate corn and Rick is just misremembering the corn thing. 

“I like corn on the cob,” Taylor says. “With salt and pepper.”

“But in Iowa, they just eat it plain,” Rick says, nodding his head. “No pepper at all. No salt, even, I bet.”

“It _sucks_ to be alone,” Casey says, sadly. “It’s probably better to just never be with anybody at all, so that way, when they’re gone, you don’t miss them. It sucks to miss people.”

“I bet they don’t use butter on their corn on the cob, either,” Taylor says, almost dreamily. “I bet Wisconsin hates them and won’t send them butter.”

“People just… they just _go_. Everybody goes away,” Casey continues, like he and Taylor are having two completely different conversations. Which they probably are, come to think of it. 

Rick takes the joint from Taylor, takes one more hit, and then stubs it out on a rock. “Life’s just shit sometimes, y’all. It’s just shit,” he says, and Casey and Taylor both nod. 

“You should go find Alicia,” Taylor says, shaking his finger at Rick. “You should take her out, Rick. Take her to dinner.”

Casey lies back against the grassy dirt and sighs loudly. “Everything sucks,” he announces. “You’re lucky, Rick.”

“Yeah, I am,” Rick agrees. “I sure am, and once I’m not stoned anymore, I’m gonna go find Alicia, just like you said, Taylor. I’m gonna take her out and tell her how pretty she is and how much I love her and how awesome she is.”

“Rick my man,” Taylor says with a grin. “You are definitely still stoned right now.”

 

**Thursday, July 11th, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

Casey flings himself onto his bed and punches David’s number. The phone rings three times before David answers.

“Hello?”

“Hi!” Casey says. “So, guess what!”

“Hey, Case. Uh. They cancelled school and you actually already are done with high school?”

Casey laughs. “Oh! I would love that! But no, sadly, that’s not it. Aunt Shannon won an award!”

“Yeah? What kind of award?”

“Some kind of football coach award, for her excellence. She has excellence and it’s award-winning. We’re going to Columbus and staying in a hotel this weekend! A _nice_ hotel!” Casey rolls over on his bed and stares up at his ceiling. “Do they really put mints on your pillows in nice hotels? I saw that in some movies.”

“No magic fingers, huh?” David sounds almost disappointed. “I don’t know, I’ve never stayed at a hotel that nice! Seems like a mint should come with it, though.”

“If I find a mint, I’ll text you a picture of it right away,” Casey promises. “Right before I eat it. Maybe I’ll text you a picture of me eating it, too, just so you know I really did eat a hotel mint from an actual hotel pillow.”

David laughs. “Okay. Let me know if they have one of those ridiculous paper things in the bathroom, too.”

“Wait, there’s a paper thing? What paper thing? Should I be concerned about the paper thing?”

“Sometimes they put a strip over the toilet seat, so you know they cleaned it, I guess.”

“Oh, that is _weird_!” Casey frowns up at his ceiling. “So, do you know when you’re, um. You know. Visiting?” He tries not to ask every time, or even every other time, but they’re partway into July and David still hasn’t come to Lima at all. 

David sighs a little. “No, I wish I did. Every time I’ve thought I was going to have a weekend, something’s come up.”

“Things do that. They come up,” Casey says, trying to keep the disappointment out of his voice. “Just let me know whenever you figure it out, I guess. I could show you my tiny swim class and you could give them some stickers.”

“The Dollar Tree is where it’s at,” David says with a laugh. 

“Yesterday, one of them asked me if I have dots on purpose,” Casey says. “I told them I drew them on with Sharpie every day and it takes me two hours. I’m not sure if they believed me.”

“Hmm. Find a Sharpie the right color,” David says after a few seconds. “Then they might be more likely to.”

“I don’t know what color is the right color,” Casey admits. “I’m not great with colors. Do Sharpies come in the right color?”

“I think we’re back to the Dollar Tree now. They should have lots of colors of Sharpies, right?”

“I’ll marker a bunch of spots on my arm and text you a picture of it. I’ll label them with letters so you can tell me which one is right,” Casey says.

“I’ll make a chart,” David jokes.

“I don’t think it could be as amazing as the mac ’n’ cheese chart, but there _are_ a lot of different Sharpie colors I could try,” Casey says. “It’s good I have you to help me with this sort of thing. Charts really do need two sets of eyes.”

“The mac ’n’ cheese chart is pretty much unreplicable,” David says. “Any other chart’s just a pale imitation or whatever that phrase is.”

“I was thinking of getting it blown up to poster-size and framed. You have to autograph it for me, though.”

“Color-code it thoroughly for the best looking print?”

“Oh, I was going to scan it and send it to you for that, since I know you’re not busy,” Casey says. “All that free time to color-code our chart!”

“Did I tell you I was considering color-coding my lab reports? Mainly to annoy my TA.”

“Color-coded lab reports?” Casey says, laughing. “You’ve _got_ to tell me more about that.”

 

**Saturday, July 20th, 2013: Dayton, Ohio — Taylor**

Casey keeps referring to the two of them as the Lima PFLAG Delegates, since they’re both going to the art fair/fundraiser at the Center in Dayton, but Taylor has to admit that in his head, he just keeps thinking of it as a ‘road trip’. A short road trip, but still: a road trip. 

“I still want to stop at the Culver’s on the way back,” Taylor insists, pocketing his keys. “That doesn’t, you know. Detract from our mission or whatever.” If Taylor hears some James Bond music in his head, that’s his business and no one else’s.

“No, I don’t think that’s a problem,” Casey says, with a sideways glance at Taylor. “The mission is just to be here for a while so they know people from Lima came to their fundraiser. Oh, and probably, um. Cupcakes or brownies or something. They’re selling baked goods.”

“Right.” Taylor pats his back pocket. “Mom wants me to get some cake or something so she can pretend to have baked it when Dad has his ‘literary discussion group’ over.”

“The ones who smoke pot, drink your dad’s beer, and then watch the television shows?” Casey asks. 

“Yeah. Well, mostly my dad’s beer sucks, so they mix cocktails instead. I think they actually like the cocktails better anyway.”

“I’ll look for a whole cake, then,” Casey says, then he waves at someone coming out of the building, a girl with bright blue hair. “That’s Kate! Hi, Kate!”

“Hey, Casey,” Kate says, as she walks up to them. “And hey Casey’s very tall friend!”

“He’s not _that_ tall,” Casey grumbles, then adds, “This is Taylor. We run the PFLAG group at McKinley. We’re the Lima PFLAG Delegation.”

Taylor grins at Kate. “Also, we’re here to find a cake.” He sticks his hand out, offering it to Kate. She takes it and shakes it firmly. He sees a brief glimpse of a purple scar across her forearm, large but not raised.

“Nice to meet you, Taylor. Casey, don’t be a freak, you’re being a freak again,” Kate says. She snorts and shakes her head. “‘Delegation’, seriously?”

“I’m not!” Casey insists.

“Are!” Kate says right back, sounding happy about it. “Taylor, I saw some cakes right in here, if you’d like me to take you to them.”

“That sounds great,” Taylor says, turning to nod at Casey. “I’ll find you later? Remember, Culver’s.”

“Don’t eat him, Kate,” Casey calls over his shoulder as he walks away in the direction of a vaguely-familiar blond boy. “He’s my ride!”

“Freak!” Kate calls back to him.

“Freak!” Casey shouts in return, giving her a grin and a thumbs up.

“Don’t listen to him,” Taylor says. “I’m willing to be eaten. I think.”

Kate laughs. “So, not gay then, huh?”

“Nope, definitely not gay,” Taylor says cheerfully. “Someone has to put the ‘T’ in the alphabet soup.”

“Now, see? You’re totally messing up my status quo here, Taylor,” Kate says, slipping her arm through Taylor’s. “I’ve spent this whole time thinking Casey was a freak, but if it turns out it’s everybody from Lima, I’ll just feel guilty, and I really hate having to feel guilty.”

Taylor laughs. “We’ll introduce you to our friend Rick, and then you’ll know that it’s not everybody from Lima.”

“He’s the one Casey called ‘the single normalest human being I have ever met’, isn’t he?” Kate asks. 

“That definitely sounds like Rick, yeah,” Taylor says, nodding. “He’s named after the port.”

“Yeeeaah, I’m sure he is. So, you should tell me all about yourself,” Kate says. “Casey told me he was bringing a friend, but he didn’t tell me he was bringing a _hot_ friend. He’s kind of a dick that way.”

Taylor shrugs. “Not too much to say. I’m gonna be a junior, I broke up with my girlfriend a few weeks ago because she kissed a boy in Iowa after drinking bad beer, and yeah, Taylor actually was my birth name. I got lucky.”

“I bet you practice that. I bet you say it like that every single time.”

“Ex-girlfriend part’s new,” Taylor says with a grin, not denying the rest of it.

“And yet, that’s the part I liked best,” Kate says. “Come on. The cakes are this way. We’ll figure out the rest of the eating later.”

Taylor grins. “Sounds good.” He looks up and catches sight of Casey heading off with someone Taylor’s never seen before. “I’ve heard someone tries to burn down the kitchen here, so maybe we should hurry.”

 

**Thursday & Friday, July 25th & 26th, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Dave**

Dave's been scouring the calendar since the end of May, looking for a weekend—preferably three days, at least—that he can take, drive up to Lima like he told Casey he would. He's mentioned it to his dad, too, and every time he thinks he's found a likely candidate, a lab's taken extra time, a test's been announced, or any one of a number of things that Dave finds annoying. The only unannoying thing most weeks, besides hanging out with the rest of the team, is actually his sessions with Lisa. He sees her once a week and has her email, too; he's only emailed her a handful of times, but knowing that he _can_ is enormously helpful on its own.

In mid-July, Dave's physics professor announces that the final will be optional. Only people who are unhappy with their grade should sign up to take it; Dave does not. He realizes that he'll turn in his last lab report on a Thursday at the end of the month. He grins to himself, figuring out that he can manage two days in Lima, maybe almost three, if he doesn't mind being really tired when he reports for preseason camp.

He doesn't mention it to Casey or to Paul; he knows Paul's not got a business trip planned, and while Casey has a swim meet, that shouldn't take his entire weekend. Dave comes back from his workout on Wednesday and does some laundry, enough to get him through two days in Lima, and packs the rest of it. It's a ten hour drive, give or take, and by the time Dave turns in the lab report, he knows it'll be midnight or later.

It's that knowledge that makes him call Paul around the Tennessee–Kentucky border, just so he doesn't scare Paul in the middle of the night. There's some delay for construction near Cincinnati, which means it's actually 1 am before he pulls into Lima. Dave dumps his laundry on top of the washer machine, hauls his other bag up to his room, and barely changes before collapsing into his bed, yawning.

Casey had been right, back in the spring. It has been a long time since Dave was in Lima.

Dave wakes up the next morning with the sun already high in the sky, and he yawns as he showers and gets dressed. He raids the kitchen and then checks the time. He can't exactly remember Casey's work schedule for the summer, so he'll go over to the Starbucks first, just in case, and then to Coach's.

The only person in Starbucks is too old to even be in college, and his nametag says 'John', so Dave just orders a drink and heads back out, driving toward Coach's house. The Lemon's not there, but Dave didn't think about checking any of the pools about a swim meet. He parks and heads up to the door, ringing the doorbell and then waiting.

"Dave!" Coach greets him with a smile. "I didn't know you were in town!"

"Yeah, kind of last minute before camp starts on Monday," Dave says. "Casey here? Didn't see his car, but."

"Oh, no, he's at that state swim meet. It's over at Kenyon, you know."

"Oh." Dave didn't know, actually, or he would have – well, he doesn't know what he would have done. "Didn't realize they went so far."

"Yeah, it's a real nice campus. Gives ’em all a chance to think about what kind of college they might like." Coach shrugs. "Monty's been talking about taking Casey on a few college visits. Virginia Tech, Purdue, Clemson, maybe that school down in Missouri."

Dave blinks. He knows that he doesn't let anything show on his face, because Coach doesn't act like anything's wrong. She just keeps talking: about Casey, about the McKinley football team and its prospects, about what she hears from or about Evans and Hudson.

He doesn't really know what he thought would happen when he showed up. He'd talked about it, with Lisa on Wednesday, about what he did hope, in the back of his mind. They're both in different places than they were at Thanksgiving, and Lisa had helped Dave understand, amongst many other things, that he didn't really give Casey a chance to decide if he was willing to take what Dave did have to offer. Part of Dave thought that it was just a year, only a year; a year looks shorter than nearly two.

But— Purdue, Dave can understand, somewhat. It's nearby. It's not a bad school. It's probably a safety school for someone like Casey. But Virginia Tech? If Casey wants an ACC school with engineering and sciences, why not _Georgia_ Tech?

Those two, though, Dave could understand. It's the last one that keeps echoing through his head. Clemson. Clemson. _Clemson_. Where Miles Brown committed to attending, back in February. Where Miles Brown probably has been for at least a month.

Dave can't think of any more definitive statement than applying to Miles Brown's school and _not_ applying to Dave's.

 

**Sunday, July 28th, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

Monty lets them into the house, hanging the keys on the holder with an announcement of, “The conquering hero has returned!”

“Conquering swimmer, anyway,” Casey adds. 

Shannon appears with a big grin. “I saw those times, Casey! C’mon, I decided to make a cake.”

“Oh! I do like cake!” Casey says. “Let me put my bag in my room and then cake can happen!”

“Red icing!” Shannon calls after him.

“Red is the best flavor!” Casey agrees. He sets his bag on his bed and walks back to the kitchen. “It was a great meet.”

“Anyone else set any records?” Shannon asks, uncovering a bright red sheet cake.

“A girl from Dublin set one for 100 yard backstroke. Oh, and a boy from Somerset busted his head open on the turn,” Casey says, sitting down at the kitchen table. “He misjudged the distance and just, _bam_ , right into it! It was awful!”

“Sure sounds that way,” Shannon agrees, cutting a large piece of cake and placing it on the plate in front of Casey. 

“He had to have stitches,” Monty says. “It was terrible. They had to clean the whole area around the pool. You know how head wounds bleed.”

Shannon nods. “They do gush. Did they make everyone else swim the race again?”

“Well, he couldn’t really swim after that, and everybody else just kept on swimming,” Casey says. “I don’t really know if they restarted it or not. I kind of stopped watching when I saw the blood.”

“We both opted to use that moment to take a break for refreshments,” Monty says, “which we ate outside.”

“I bet you did,” Shannon says with a grin, serving Monty and then herself a slice of cake. “Other than the blood, good meet to end the summer season?”

“I got medals,” Casey says, like that’s the obvious answer. “Medals are always a good way to end a season.”

“Did you do anything exciting while we were away?” Monty asks. 

“Nah, not really,” Shannon answers, starting to shake her head. “Oh, Casey. Dave stopped by, I guess he was in town for a day or two.”

Casey suddenly feels like the oxygen’s been sucked out of the room, because he can’t quite take a breath. “What?” he asks.

“Dave came by,” Shannon says. “Last-minute kind of thing, maybe.”

“David was here?” Casey asks. “In Lima?”

Shannon nods slowly. “Yeah, that’s what I said. You get some water in your ears, Casey?”

“Is he still in town? Did he say how long he was here for?” Casey puts his hands flat on the table. He can’t have missed David’s only visit back to Lima. He _can’t_.

“No, he had to go back. Preseason starts bright and early tomorrow morning, he said.”

Casey uses the table to push himself up to standing. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you call me and tell me he was here?” He can hear that he’s being too loud, but he can’t lower his volume. “You should have called me!”

Shannon gives him a strange look. “You were in the middle of your meet, Casey. I didn’t think it’d make a difference if I told you then or today.”

“I don’t _care_ that I was in the middle of a meet! You should have called me!” Casey bursts out. “It’s _David_! I haven’t seen him since Thanksgiving!”

“And were you just going to leave the meet and drive back to Lima?” Shannon asks, shaking her head. “No, of course not. It was just a case of unfortunate timing, Casey.”

“I might have! Or I could have talked to him, at least!” Casey says. “What did he say? You have to tell me what he said.”

“Casey, please watch your tone,” Monty says quietly. 

“I didn’t record the conversation,” Shannon says, almost sounding amused. “We talked about football, mainly.”

“Football?” Casey blurts out. “That’s _it_? He drives all the way to Lima and shows up here without telling me he was even coming, and you just talked about _football_?” His hands are still pressed against the tabletop and he can feel his arms start to shake. 

“I was his coach for two years,” Shannon points out. “It’s a natural topic to come up. He congratulated me on the coaching award, too.”

“He didn’t say anything about me?” Casey asks. “He didn’t say why he didn’t tell me he was coming? He didn’t say anything at all about that?”

“He came here to talk to you, not me.” Shannon shrugs. “Like I said, I think it was some kind of last minute thing. Seemed confused that your swim meets weren’t all in town, maybe.”

“I told him we had a meet. I didn’t mention where it was, because I didn’t think it _mattered_ ,” Casey says. “Why didn’t you call me? You could have called me at night or left me a voicemail or texted me or… or… or _something_. Aunt Shannon, he was _here_ , and you didn’t even tell me.”

“I didn’t honestly think it was this big of a deal,” Shannon says, looking a little concerned.

“I could have driven to meet him halfway after the meet,” Casey says. He can hear himself starting to get hysterical, but he doesn’t particularly care. “I could have seen him. I haven’t seen him in eight months. I could have at least _seen_ him. He was _right here_ , and I didn’t get to see him at all!”

Shannon murmurs something to Monty, who shakes his head slightly and shrugs. “As I said, I didn’t realize the, ah. Depth of feeling,” Shannon says, shrugging herself. “After all, Casey, you spent seven months dating Miles. You said you were going to go visit him down at Clemson.”

Casey feels lightheaded, and he’s glad he’s still resting his hands on the table. “Did you tell him that?”

“We didn’t discuss Miles Brown,” Shannon says.

“What _did_ you discuss, and don’t just say football,” Casey demands. “What did you tell him? I _know_ you told him something, or he would have called me.”

“Casey,” Monty says. “That is not an acceptable tone to take with Shannon. You need to calm down.”

“No!” Casey says, stomping his foot. “What did you tell him?”

“I thought we’d gotten past this,” Shannon says sadly.

“Why won’t you just tell me what you told him?” Casey asks. His voice breaks a little. “Aunt Shannon, _please_. What did he say? What did you tell him?”

“I told you,” Shannon says, a little defensively. “Football – college teams, McKinley. Some of Dave’s teammates.” She frowns. “Oh, and choosing colleges. We talked about it being your senior year coming up.”

Casey tilts his head to the side and stares at Shannon for a moment, mouth slightly agape, before he can compose himself enough to say, “But I already _know_ where I’m going.”

“You do?” Shannon asks, raising an eyebrow and then looking at Monty. “That’s the first I’ve heard of it. Monty?”

“It’s never been discussed with me, either,” Monty says. “Casey?”

“I’m going to Georgia Tech. That’s where I’m going. Why would I go anywhere else?” Casey asks. “Did you tell him I wanted to go somewhere else? Why would you do that?”

“I’m not exactly psychic, Casey,” Shannon says slowly. “I had no idea. I just mentioned that Monty and I had talked about places you might want to look.”

“But I don’t _want_ to look places!” Casey says. “I’m going to Atlanta. That’s the only place I ever wanted to go.” He looks from Shannon to Monty. “How could you not know that? How did you not know?” He shakes his head slowly. “It’s where David is. That’s the only place I ever wanted to go.”

“I’m still not sure how you expected us to know all of this,” Shannon says, shaking her head. “Casey, I wasn’t even sure you were still talking to Dave that much.”

“I talk to him three times a week, at least. We text every single day,” Casey says. “He’s _David_ , Aunt Shannon. He’s… you told him a bunch of schools and you didn’t even tell him Georgia Tech, did you?”

“I can’t tell him something I don’t know myself,” Shannon says, sounding a little short for the first time. 

“I don’t understand how you didn’t know,” Casey says. It doesn’t make any sense. Why would he go anywhere but where David is? Even if David is just his ‘best friend’ and nothing else, why could Casey want to go somewhere David isn’t? “What did he say? Did you tell him specific places? Was he upset? What did he _say_?”

“I didn’t know because you never told us, Casey,” Shannon says firmly. “I am not responsible for all of your communication. I can’t communicate facts I’m unaware of. No, Dave did not seem upset. We kept talking.” She pauses and looks at Monty. “I mentioned Purdue, Virginia Tech, Clemson, and that nice little school in Miss—”

“ _Clemson_?” Casey shouts at her. “You told him I was looking at _Clemson_? _Why?_ Why would you do that? Why would you tell him that?”

“Casey, that has been enough of that,” Monty says suddenly. “Please go to your room until you can calm down and speak to Shannon respectfully.”

“But, Uncle Monty, she told him—”

“No, Casey, that’s enough,” Monty repeats, frowning. “I’m not entirely sure what’s happening, but I don’t like it, and I don’t like how you’re speaking to Shannon. Go to your room and calm yourself down.”

Casey pushes himself away from the table and storms out of the kitchen without another word. He slams his bedroom door behind him and falls onto his bed with a frustrated roar. David wouldn’t have just showed up like that without letting Casey know first if he didn’t have a reason, but whatever that reason might have been, David didn’t tell Shannon. It had to be important for David to show up out of the blue.

He pulls out his phone and calls David. The phone rings so many times, Casey’s sure it’s about to voicemail before David finally answers. 

“Hello?”

“David?” Casey says. He can hear David, but his voice is almost drowned out by background noise. “Hello?”

“Casey?” David says in response. “Hey. Sorry about the noise. We’re doing the whole big supposedly optional social thing tonight.”

“Oh. Do you need me to call you back?” Casey asks. David doesn’t _sound_ like he has anything important to say. He just sounds drowned out by the noises around him.

“Text’s probably going to be better for a few days,” David says apologetically. “I didn’t realize they’d gone easy on us as red-shirts.”

“Oh. Okay, I understand,” Casey says. He doesn’t, really, at least not about why David was in Lima, but he knows football requires a lot of time. “You were here.”

“Yeah, final turned out to be optional,” David says. “Quick drive up and back. Warned Dad once I realized he might think I was a burglar.”

“Wish you’d warned _me_ ,” Casey says. “I’m sorry I missed you. David, look—”

“Sort of the point,” David mutters. “I’ve got to go, Case. We’ll talk in a few days, okay?”

“Oh. Yes, okay. I— I hope you have good practices,” Casey says, as quietly as he can and David still be able to hear him. 

“Thanks. Bye, Case.”

“Goodbye, David,” Casey says. He waits until he hears David end the call to put his phone down. Whatever it was David had wanted from Casey when he came to Lima, it doesn’t sound like he wants anything now. If only Casey had known David was coming into town, he could have skipped the swim meet or planned to see David somewhere. 

There’s a soft tap on Casey’s door, then it creaks open. “You feeling better?” Monty asks. “You were upset.”

“Yeah, I’m…” Casey sighs. “I don’t know what I am. I’m sorry I yelled at Aunt Shannon.”

Monty walks into the room and sits down on the end of Casey’s bed. “Did you want to talk about it? Or anything else?”

“I thought everybody knew I wanted to go to Georgia Tech,” Casey explains. “I thought you and Aunt Shannon knew.”

“We can’t know things that you don’t tell us, Casey. We try very hard to guess what’s going on, but you’re an enigmatic child,” Monty says. “It’s hard to know what’s going on with you, and you don’t really do much to help us out in that respect.”

“Sorry,” Casey says. “I just… I don’t really know what things to tell people, or how to tell them things, I guess. I don’t even think about people _wanting_ to know things.” He sighs and puts his arm over his face to block out the light and Monty’s sympathetic face. “I just fail at being normal.”

“Oh, Casey,” Monty sighs. “We just wish you’d remember that we’re on your side and you can talk to us. We didn’t even know you and Dave were speaking that regularly. You don’t really talk about him.”

Casey shrugs without moving his arm away from his face. “I don’t want to talk about him. It’s bad enough he’s nine hours away. I don’t want to talk about how far away he is and how much it sucks.”

“Alright,” Monty says. “That’s your choice. Do try to be patient with us when we don’t know what’s going on with your life or what to say to people who ask about you, at least?”

“I’ll try harder,” Casey says. “Tell Aunt Shannon I’m sorry I yelled at her, okay?”

“Okay,” Monty says. He stands and walks back towards the door, and Casey moves his arm away from his face to watch the door closing behind Monty. Every time he feels like things are going well, it feels like something happens that throws everything out of balance again. It’s like he has the worst luck with timing of anyone, and that the harder he tries to fix things, the more they go awry. Maybe the timing is never going to be right with David. Maybe that’s the point, why things keep getting mixed up, the wrong messages keep getting passed. He’s been holding out hope that something would finally go right and they’d be on the same page at the same time, but reality might finally be sinking in. Maybe this is as good as it will ever get for them.

 

**Thursday, August 1st, 2013: Clemson, South Carolina — Miles**

Miles has been at Clemson for a little over a month now, and he’s finally starting to feel like he’s settling in. Granted, he didn’t make out like a champion in the roomie department—despite filling out all these housing forms with places to list interests and hobbies, the only traits Miles Brown and Billy Clarke seem to share are being black and being football players—but he’s getting on alright with the team, he knows his way around campus, and he thinks he’s getting a decent read on locker room climate and politics. Really, Miles only misses three things: Casey, sex, and his Ma’s juice. 

Miles was a little disappointed to discover the workout facilities weren’t quite what the recruiter promised, but if he’d done a little more asking around on the front end, he would have known to take everything the recruiter told him with a grain of salt. The workout regimen is great, at least, and Miles has never looked better. He’s looking forward to showing off a little the next time he sees Casey, honestly, though he’d never admit it if anyone asked. If anyone _knew_ to ask, which they don’t.

He’s finishing up his workout with a bunch of the other freshmen when the conversation turns to women. Now, Miles has been living like a monk this past month, but it’s not like he doesn’t have anything to bring to the table in the sex-discussion department, but something tells him not to jump right in with his input. 

“One of the guys said we should just wait for the sorority chicks to get back on campus,” Duncan says with a wide smirk. “Great pieces of ass.”

“It’ll rock when everybody else gets back,” Adcock says. “All that’s left right now are the nerds and the dykes.”

“Yeah, I got a girl back home,” Lyles says. “What she don’t know won’t hurt her, though.”

“That’s right,” Echols agrees. “She can’t expect you to wait to see her. You’re a hotshot college football player now. Getting tail, that’s what you should do.” He nods slowly. “Nice thing about benchwarming, boys, we can spend some time looking up some cheerleader skirts.”

“I heard that Clemson cheerleaders have some _quality_ pussy,” Adcock says. “And they know where to throw it.”

“What about you, Brown?” Lyles asks. “You got a girl back home?”

“Nope,” Miles answers. “No girl back home.” 

“Too busy playing the field, right?” Duncan says, looking at Miles for confirmation.

“Oh yeah,” Miles says. “Much of a field as they got up in Lima, Ohio, anyway.”

“Southern girls, man,” Adcock says, shaking his head. “Nothing like ’em.” 

“Tit man or ass man?” Echols asks with a grin. “Me, I’m all about a nice rack.”

“Ass man all the way,” Lyles answers. “My girl back home, I talked her into letting me fuck her in the back door once. She was all crying about it by the end, but it was fuckin’ _awesome_.”

“I hear those cheerleaders’ll do anything,” Adcock says. He raises and lowers his eyebrows. “ _Anything_.” He grins. “I guess I could be an ass man, too, if one of those cheerleaders is willing.”

“I heard a story once,” Duncan says dramatically. “One of the guys here, taking it up the ass. Cheerleader had a strap-on.”

“That’s just sick,” Lyles says, complete with fake retching noises. “Fucking _sick_ , dude.”

“Aw, what’s the matter, Lyles,” Miles says, composing his face into a grin. “You can dish it out, but you can’t take it?”

“Oh, fuck you, Brown!” Lyles says, when the other guys start laughing at him. “That’s not even funny.”

“You were awfully excited about ass, Lyles,” Adcock says. “There something you want to tell us?”

“Fuck you, too, Adcock!”

“Sorry, man,” Adcock says. “No homo.”

Lyles’ face turns bright red. “Fuck the bunch of you. I’m the only one here’s even got a girlfriend. If anybody here’s a fag, it’d have to be one of you. You can call my girl up right now and she’ll tell you.”

Miles has to stop himself from taking a step back, because that word hits him like a slap. Worst he’s ever heard tossed around in Lima is ‘queer’, which isn’t exactly off the mark. He’d heard things about Clemson, but the recruiter had known Miles was in PFLAG and didn’t seem to be bothered by it. Of course, the recruiter made a _lot_ of promises that didn’t pan out.

“It’s okay, Lyles,” Adcock says, his voice dripping with false sympathy. “We won’t tell anybody who the fag _is_ , we’ll just warn them they need to start showering in their sweats.”

Duncan and Echols both visibly shudder. “Fuck that,” Echols says. “I ain’t never showered with a faggot and I’m not starting in college, sweats or no.”

“Queers got no place on a football team,” Adcock says firmly, like that’s that for the conversation. Duncan, Echols, and Lyles all nod enthusiastically, and after just a second, to Miles’ shame, he starts nodding, too. 

 

**Saturday, August 3rd, 2013: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Dave is a little surprised to hear Brandon's voice when he answers the phone just after lunch on a Saturday.

"Hey, didn't realize you were back in town already."

"Yeah, everything closes down in August in D.C.," Brandon laughs. "Listen, I was going to get a few friends together, head out to one of the clubs. You interested?"

Dave starts to say no. He opens his mouth, fully intent on saying, no, that's not really his thing, but for some reason, what comes out instead is, "Well. Okay. What time?"

He fails to ask any other questions: where they're going, what he's supposed to wear to wherever they are going, what time they'll be home, are they going even let him in since he's not even twenty yet. He just finds out what time to meet them in the courtyard, and that's how he ends up at a place called the Atlanta Osprey, trying to dance.

"Atlanta's obsessed with birds," he mutters under his breath as he moves through the crowd. "Osprey, Hawks, Falcons, a Phoenix. What's next, Atlanta Owls?" He almost hits himself on the head. The university just outside of the city is the Owls.

"You look frustrated!" a voice says, right beside Dave's ear, and he wheels around, trying to look a bit more like he's enjoying being at a club, instead of, apparently, frustrated. "Hi!"

"Uh, hi," Dave manages, not really sure if the stranger is some kind of clubbing welcome wagon or actually showing interest in him. Then again, how would a clubbing welcome wagon work? It's not like they asked if Dave had been there previously.

"That's better! Everyone should be having a good time," the guy says with a little shrug. He dances closer to Dave, their bodies just inches apart, and he winks at Dave before looking down and then nodding towards the back of the club.

Dave looks at the guy, almost startled, and takes a hesitant step towards the rear of the club. The guy nods and runs a hand down Dave's chest, stopping just above the buckle of Dave's belt.

It isn't until the guy's mouth closes around Dave that he thunks his head against the wall in the back of the club. The guy takes that as encouragement or something, but really Dave is wondering how he can be quite so stupid. It's been just over a week since he tried to see Casey, and now he's in a club, getting a blowjob from a guy whose name he doesn't even know.

It's an excellent blowjob, Dave admits, the way the guy's mouth moves around him, his hand working with his mouth and tongue. The setting is impersonal, and Dave doesn't feel ashamed per se, just like his mind and body are experiencing it on two totally different levels. His hips rock forward and his mouth drops open, and Dave grabs the guy's head, almost in spite of himself.

Dave knows he's using this guy; the guy is probably using him, too, and doesn't seem to mind being used, but that's still exactly what it is, for both of them. This guy isn't who Dave wants, and he knows it; he isn't anything close to what Dave wants.

Eyes closed, Dave concentrates on the feel of the guy's tongue on his skin, the slight drag of his dry hand against Dave, and Dave momentarily thinks how absurd it is for the guy's hand to be dry. Dave feels like he's in a sauna, has since he stepped into the club at the beginning of the night, and this guy has a dry hand. No sweat at all. Dave moves again, almost involuntarily, his weight shifting forward, and the guy's tongue wraps around him, moving more constantly and more quickly than Dave would have thought possible beforehand.

Dave lets himself relax, at least physically, and he can feel his orgasm build. Though his eyes are closed, the sounds of the club around him keep him present. His fingers clutch at the guy's shoulders, and Dave yells out as he comes, hard.

The guy leans back, smiling up at Dave as he removes the condom and ties it off, and Dave fastens his pants. "That was awesome." He stands up and tosses the condom in a garbage bin Dave hadn't even noticed. "Just had a break-up?"

"What?" Dave shakes his head. "No. I mean— well, sort of." It wasn't a break-up; it was just the end of some hopes.

"Casey, right?"

"Wh— how?"

The guy laughs. "You're a sweetheart. You said his name when you came." With that, he walks away, and Dave is left staring after him for a few seconds before he shakes himself and heads back onto the dance floor. What he was hoping to accomplish by accepting the offer, Dave's not still entirely sure, but he is sure that it didn't really work. He resolves to just dance for the rest of the evening, losing himself in the music, his brain only turning a few times to the idea that he had hoped they'd do out of character things like explore clubs together.

 

**Tuesday, August 20th, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

Things have never felt quite right since David came to Lima over the summer and Casey wasn’t there. Once David adjusted to his football schedule, they continued talking with close to the same frequency, but it just doesn’t feel the same. David seems distant, and sometimes the silences stretch a little too long, or David will cut Casey off before he can start talking about certain topics. 

Casey still isn’t sure what it was David might have wanted to tell him in July, but whatever it was, it’s remained unsaid, and they haven’t discussed Casey and colleges at all. Casey’s honestly a little afraid to bring it up again, after his previous few attempts resulted in David quickly remembering he had some place he needed to be or some crisis he needed to attend to. While it’s certainly possible that Danny has had that many kitchen mishaps, it doesn’t seem likely.

Still, it’s Casey’s first day as a senior, and all he wants to do is tell David about it, so he calls and hopes that it’ll be a day when he can actually engage David in a lengthy conversation about something. Luckily, David answers after only two rings.

“Hello?”

“Hi,” Casey says. “Are you busy?”

“Nah, dinner’s over and no mandatory study hall or anything. How was your first day as a senior?”

“Long. I feel officially seniored,” Casey says, “and my dual enrollment class starts tomorrow, so I don’t even know what to think about that.”

David laughs. “Yeah, but the days you don’t have dual enrollment will be shorter. Plus you can eat on the way to class instead of in the cafeteria.”

“But how will I survive without mystery meat and flavorless salads?” Casey asks. “Oh, no, wait. Totally fine. That’s how.”

“Exactly,” David says sagely. “Your quality of life just went up drastically.”

“It just means Aunt Shannon is going to start hiding Clif Bars in the Lemon again,” Casey says. “She did that this summer during swim season. I kept finding packets of nuts and bags of beef jerky in everything, too. I felt like I was driving a concession stand.”

“Did you make any money, though? Gotta advertise, Case. One of those magnet signs on your door.”

“I never wanted to be a food van,” Casey sighs. “I guess that can be a fallback option, though, if the whole college thing doesn’t pan out.”

“So how’s PFLAG look this year?” David says abruptly. “Still meeting weekly? Did you meet today?”

“We’re starting next week, so we don’t terrify the freshmen,” Casey says. “They’re… very small. I don’t remember them being that small when I was a freshman.”

David laughs. “Well, they’re probably just a little scared, still. Makes ’em seem smaller.”

“Probably,” Casey admits. “I think some of them are taller than me. But I’m way less scared than they are, so that’s something!”

“It is,” David agrees. “You starting out with a movie night in September?”

“That’s the plan, at least. Brooklyn is insisting we show more lesbian movies this year. She says if we don’t do fifty-fifty, we’re discriminating, even though I tried to tell her there just aren’t as many of those,” Casey says. “There aren’t! I swear, I tried to find some, even though… well, you have to be _very_ careful what you Google, David.”

“SafeSearch is our friend, Case. Remember that,” David laughs.

“They need to make GaySafeSearch, so it filters out, um. _Those_ movie links.”

“You’d think there’d be a nice database somewhere,” David says wryly.

“There are, but most of them aren’t updated often enough, and we’ve seen most of the ones that are appropriate for PFLAG movie nights,” Casey says. “I think we’re going to do a short film night in September. There’s a bunch of those!”

“That sounds good,” David says. “Just don’t put—what was his name?—well, you know. No vegan food.”

“Pranesh’s vegan food isn’t like Rachel Berry’s vegan food,” Casey explains. “For starters, mostly it’s Indian and it’s also mostly really good. Samosas, David! _Samosas!_ ”

“No fake roasts? That’s good.”

“No, but he brought this potato thing one time. It was really good. You’d like it. I’d get the recipes for things, but, um. That would involve cooking and I think I can’t do that.”

“You could give them to Coach or Monty?” David suggests.

“Aunt Shannon would put protein powder in them. Or egg whites. Or _both_ ,” Casey says. “I’ve never, ever been so proteinated in my life.”

“Protein’s good, Case. You know if you throw an egg in with a smoothie, you really can’t tell it’s in there.”

“Ew.”

David laughs. “I bet Coach’s done it. Ask her.”

“She’d just lie or change the subject. That’s what she did when I asked her what was in her weird egg scramble thing,” Casey says. “She started talking about my SAT scores instead.”

“I _miss_ that egg scramble thing,” David laments. 

“I’ll ask her to show me how to make it and I’ll make it for you when—” Casey cuts himself off abruptly, because he’s about to veer into discussion of college again. “Well, I’ll figure out a time to make it for you, and I’ll make it.”

“You should eat more of it,” David warns. “You’ll miss it. Well. Maybe you will. But yeah, that’d be good.”

“Do you have to _crack_ the eggs before you put them in the pan?” Casey asks innocently. “Or can I just put them in whole?”

“No, no, you have to put them in whole. All the fiber’s lost otherwise.”

“I’ll remember that. Don’t want to make your scramble the wrong way, David.”

“Can’t go wrong with fiber _and_ protein, Case. Right?”

 

**Saturday, August 31st, 2013: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

The routine isn’t much different now that Dave’s not redshirted anymore, but there’s the _possibility_ of playing, at least, and they win by twelve. “Good way to start the season,” Dave comments as he heads out of the locker room with Ty, Danny, and Coop. 

“Better would’ve been if Big D had kept that last field goal from happening,” Ty says, though he’s clearly joking. “Looks like maybe they found Big D this year at least.”

“But Danny here’s still out there looking for Big O,” Coop adds. 

“Nope,” Danny says cheerfully. “[Not looking.](https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1UwsUL9uf6aumjirSD7RRu1uWfd9XngUbbjiQuYUNugI)”

“Doesn’t that fall under Coop’s oversharing rule?” Dave asks. “Coop?”

“Yep. Nobody talks about what they’re getting unless everybody’s getting some,” Coop says, nodding his head. “It’s only fair. It’s like when you’d have a pack of gum back in grade school. If there ain’t enough for everybody, nobody gets any.”

Ty shakes his head sadly. “We’re never gonna get to talk, guys. Who would take pity on Coop here?”

“Pickings are a little slim around here,” Coop admits. “We should start hitting some parties at other campuses. I heard we might have some luck over at Agnes Scott, maybe even scoot over to Spelman?”

“You think you can handle a sister?” Ty laughs.

“The real question is, can she handle _me_?” Coop retorts. 

“Probably not,” Danny says soberly. 

“Nobody’s asking you, Danny,” Coop says. “Besides, you’ve got your webcam sweetheart to keep you busy.”

“Yeah, that didn’t work for you either,” Dave says to Coop. “Guys, we’ll have to make sure no one warns the other campuses about him, I’m thinking.”

“It’s his hats,” Ty says. “I think it’s the hats.”

“What wrong with my hats?” Coop asks. “They’re clean.”

“It’s not the hats, it’s how you wear them,” Ty starts.

“You look like a douche,” Dave agrees.

“They’re just normal ol’ hats!” Coop protests. “I wear ’em like hats. How else am I supposed to wear them?”

“Not like a douche,” Danny says, like it’s obvious. “Maybe ask some of the ladies for tips, Coop. I could get Brit to give you advice, if you want.”

“Pfft,” Coop says in Danny’s general direction, waving him away. “I don’t look like a douche.”

“Nope, we’re right,” Ty says. “You do. It’s okay. It’s not terminal.”

“Except for his love life. It’s DOA,” Dave laughs.

“Oh yeah?” Coop asks. “From what I can tell, Special K and Ty are both getting lots of love… hand over fist.” He follows it up with a rude gesture.

Danny laughs, a little bit smugly, and Dave rolls his eyes. 

“That’s what a party’s for,” Ty says. “Time to go out tonight and celebrate.”

“We can celebrate that moment where we thought you might get two whole minutes of field time, Ty,” Coop says. “That’s celebratory!”


	13. September/October 2013

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things aren't what they first appear to be; the reality isn't any less complicated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warnings: Illicit drug use, underage drinking**

**Tuesday, September 3rd, 2013: Clemson, South Carolina — Miles**

Miles hears about what went down at LSU while he’s doing his workout on Monday, and since it’s not the kind of thing he wants to take the risk of looking up on his phone where other people could see, he has to get through practice before he can go back to his dorm room and pull up a few articles. It looks as bad on the screen as it sounded in the locker room; that boy out at LSU got his ass handed to him by a bunch of Aggies and his own damn team mates, by all accounts, in what seems to be the SEC–version of a game of Smear the Queer.

Miles has got all the sympathy in the world for this Baptiste kid, he really does, but his first instinct is still to run through a list in his own head of everything he needs to do to make sure the same thing won’t happen to him. His Facebook is already locked down, set up so people can’t tag him in pictures, not even in his real name—easy enough to change it to ‘Miles AboveAverage’ and claim it’s because he’s the superior Brown—and he’s definitely never added anybody from Clemson.

He hasn’t been to the Clemson GSA even once. He’s taken several girls out, always making a point to take them someplace public and then back to his dorm if they’re interested, giving Clarke the boot so he and whichever girl can have some privacy. It’s almost as much about keeping up appearances as it is about the sex— no, if he’s being honest, it’s _as_ much, maybe more. He doesn’t go to clubs, or what passes for clubs in Clemson, anyway. He doesn’t even let himself _look_ at guys. It’s already getting under his skin, making it crawl, but surely it’s enough to keep what happened at LSU from happening to him.

By early the next afternoon, the word’s out: LSU’s dismissed the Baptiste kid from the team, but the two who helped the Aggies beat him up barely got a slap on the wrist. And the thing is, for all the comments on the LGBT blogs—which Miles’ll carefully erase from his history as soon as he’s done—about that being the SEC, Miles knows it would be just as bad at Clemson as it is at LSU, regardless of the conference.

Miles turns it over in his head for the better part of the afternoon, all through the rest of his classes and as he heads to practice, and when he gets to the locker room and finds it mostly empty, he knows what he’s got to do. It sucks, and he feels like a heel, but it’s a matter of simple self-preservation, and if anybody in this world could understand that, it’d be Casey. Hating himself a little, Miles dials Casey’s number.

“Hi, Miles!” Casey says, sounding so happy to hear from Miles that it makes him hate himself that much more.

“Hey, Cherry,” Miles says. “Look, I know we talked about you coming out here to hang out in a few weeks…"

“I might take the bus!” Casey chirps. “How cool would that be?”

“Yeah, it would be pretty cool,” Miles acknowledges. “It’s just… I don’t know if it’s a real good idea for you to come out here right now. Maybe not for a while.”

“Oh,” Casey says. He sounds a little deflated. “Okay. Is everything alright?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s all alright. Just, there’s… there’s some stuff been going on, and I don’t know how to—”

“LSU,” Casey interrupts. “I live with Aunt Shannon, Miles. I know about what happened at LSU because that’s where Sam is, and Aunt Shannon follows all the teams where her players go. I know what’s going on.” He sighs quietly. “It’s alright. I understand.”

“Do you?” Miles asks him. “’Cause I swear, Cherry. I sure as hell don’t.”

“I know. This is so awful. I’m sorry,” Casey says sadly. “I’ll see you at Thanksgiving, though, right?”

“Oh, you bet you will,” Miles says. “We’ll catch up then, and it’ll all be good.”

“Okay, Miles,” Casey says. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“You take care, Cherry,” Miles says, and he ends the call.

“Cherry, huh?” a voice says from behind Miles, Miles turns around quickly to see Adcock standing there. “That’s some kind of name.”

Miles makes himself laugh, forces himself to relax his shoulders into a good-natured shrug. “Just a nickname.”

“Thought you said you didn’t have a girl back home,” Adcock says, starting to pull on his gear for practice. “She hot?”

Miles almost sighs in relief over that little window of opportunity. “Cute little redhead, freckles like you wouldn’t believe,” Miles says. “Wasn’t serious, though. You know how it is… head-over-heels in love with somebody else.” He doesn’t say _she_ , but he definitely doesn’t say _he_. It’s not really a lie, though. Not really. Not yet, anyway.

“Yeah, the hot ones usually are,” Adcock snorts, and then the two of them head out to the field. 

 

**Wednesday, September 11th, 2013: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Sometimes Dave isn't sure why he faithfully goes to every single Pride Alliance meeting. He doesn't particularly want any position of leadership, no matter how small, so he's not trying to impress anyone with his commitment to the group. He's made a few good friends through the group, true, but guessing who will be at the meeting in any given week is pretty difficult. The topics aren't always that interesting; sometimes, they're familiar from PFLAG back at McKinley, except Dave realizes they were more thorough in PFLAG a lot of the time. 

But Dave goes every week, socializes, and pretends like he's not trying to balance a demanding major with a demanding NCAA sport. 

"So this is the Pride Alliance," a blond guy says, sitting down beside Dave. "I kept meaning to show up last year, and I never did."

"Yeah, this is it," Dave agrees, nodding. "It's a pretty nice group. Attendance fluctuates some, though."

"I'm Josh," the guy says with a smile. "Sophomore, EE."

"Dave," Dave returns the greeting. "Also a sophomore, architecture."

Josh whistles. "Is that as hard as I hear it is?"

"It's not _hard_ ," Dave tries to explain. "It's— really time consuming, might be the best description."

"Still!" Josh laughs. The meeting starts and they fall more or less silent, though Josh asks a few questions and cracks a few jokes under his breath. When the meeting is over and people start to socialize, Josh stands up, starts to walk away, then stops and turns back to Dave. "So, you want to go grab a bite at Rocky Mountain?"

Dave's not quite as naive as he admittedly once was, and he can read Josh's stance and the look in his eye well enough to know that it's at least a little bit a date. Dave stands too and nods. "Sure. Let's go."

 

**Sunday, September 22nd, 2013: Atlanta, Georgia — Ty**

Ty doesn't usually spend too much time chasing down stories on the Internet about this or that college football rumor. Most of them are about what guy is or isn't rumored to start, or may or may not hold onto eligibility. Tonight, though, in addition to the speculation about BCS rankings—which is dumb for many reasons, since they're still a month away—there's rumors about something on Perez Hilton's website. 

That doesn't make any sense in Ty's opinion; why would Perez Hilton have anything to do with college football? When he goes to the page and reads the post, though, he scowls at the screen. He opens up a message on Facebook to Coop and Danny and pops the link into it, then closes down Facebook and heads into the hallway. He knocks on Special K's door. 

"Come in."

"You better go to Perez Hilton's site," Ty says without preamble, stepping into the room. 

"Perez Hilton?" Special K starts to repeat, then shrugs and pulls up the page. He exhales heavily as he reads. "Well, fuck."

"At first I dismissed it, because I forgot you got moved up to starting roster last week," Ty explains. "But then I remembered, and yeah, you were out both nights this weekend."

"Fuck. Yeah." Special K shakes his head. "Most of the team wouldn't be surprised, though, so they got that wrong, at least."

"This is flat-out irresponsible, after what happened at LSU, though," Ty says, and he feels like it's possible he's more upset than Special K. Maybe Special K had to think about this kind of thing before he decided to play football beyond high school. Maybe Special K had been _ready_ for something like this, and that makes Ty even madder. He likes to think of himself as a progressive sort of guy, really, and Special K being gay has made even less of a difference than he ever thought it would. He shouldn't have to worry about this kind of shit any more than the rest of them. 

"Well, that was Texas." Special K frowns. "But yeah, it is. Don't think Perez Hilton really cares if he's irresponsible, though."

"What?!" comes a yell from the kitchen. "Ty?"

"I sent the link to Coop and Danny," Ty explains as they can hear Danny coming down the hall. "Figured Coop'd see it as soon as he got back."

"Special K, this just ain't right," Danny says, appearing in the doorway. "Who does this hotel guy think he is, anyway?"

Ty hears the door open and then close, Coop’s footsteps on the floor. A few minutes later, Coop shouts, “Oh what the actual hell? Ty?”

“Down here!” Ty calls back. “And I know! What the fuck, right?”

“Is that even legal?” Coop asks, standing in the doorway. “That’s probably not even legal.”

“They don’t list a specific name, so it’s not libel. It’s questionable about whether it would be even with a name, really; it’s not inherently a bad thing, but in some circumstances…" Special K trails off. “What?”

“You are _way_ too calm about this, Special K,” Ty says. “Don’t you think so, Coop?”

“Yeah, it’s a little bit spooky,” Coop agrees. “How are you not freaking out?”

“What good would it do?” Special K asks, giving a tired-looking shrug. “If I start freaking out, and it _is_ about me, then whoever sent it in just gets a lot of satisfaction about how I’m reacting.”

“Maybe,” Ty says dubiously. “Still. It’s awfully mean-spirited.”

“It’s like someone was following you around, Special K. I didn’t know you were being spied on,” Danny says, looking sad.

“That’s creepy as hell, people following you around,” Coop says, shaking his head. “I don’t know, Special K. I just don’t know.”

“We’ll keep an eye out,” Ty decides. “Going to practice and dinner and workouts. See if we can figure out who it might be. I don’t think it’d be anyone on the team, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be someone else here.”

“I don’t need an honor guard,” Special K says, rolling his eyes. “You can’t check all my classes for me and everything.”

“If we’re the honor guard, do we get one of those fancy sashes like we had back in Scouts?” Danny asks. 

“No,” Ty choruses along with Coop and Special K. 

“Oh.” Danny frowns. “Well, wait. Does this mean there’s hidden cameras and stuff?”

“Who would put cameras in here, Danny?” Coop asks. “Do you think they just put cameras everywhere and hope they catch a gay dude or something? Doesn’t seem real cost-effective, if you ask me.”

“I guess you’re right,” Danny acknowledges. “It would be pretty expensive.”

 

**Monday, September 23rd, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

Between the moment just before second period when Taylor shows Casey the website and the point when Casey gets home that afternoon, he works himself into a complete righteous fury over the utter and disgusting _inhumanity_ of Perez Hilton. The only reason he doesn’t call David on the way home from school is that he’s afraid he might wreck the Lemon in a rage-induced jerk of the steering wheel. Instead, as soon as he gets home, he dumps his backpack and shoes by the front door and immediately punches in David’s number.

“Hello?” David answers on the second ring, the sound of movement and clanging metal in the background.

“I’m going to kill him,” Casey says. “Hi, David. I’m going to _murder_ him. I am going to put him into a _woodchipper_!”

“You saw it, then,” David says flatly. “Nothing would grow in mulch of him, though, Case, you have to admit. Right?”

“Oh yes, I saw it, alright,” Casey answers fiercely. “And I’m still going to put him in a woodchipper. How can someone _do_ something like that to another person? What is _wrong_ with him? I _hate_ him, David!”

“That’s how he makes his money.” David sounds almost too philosophical about the entire thing. “He’s wrong, anyway, since most of my teammates wouldn’t be shocked.”

“Are you alright, though?” Casey asks. “Is everything okay there? Is it going to be a problem or anything? David, I will really, really, truly _kill_ him.”

“No criminal activity necessary, I promise, Case,” David says. “It’s— I mean, it’s not perfect, and yeah, it sucks, but no. It’s not a problem. Not like it would be some places.”

“I’m so sorry this happened. I’m just so _mad_ for you right now,” Casey says. “Is he in Los Angeles? Or is he in New York? Because I can find him if I just know where to start. I can find him and bring him to a woodchipper.”

David almost chuckles. “I don’t honestly know. Google it, maybe?” He pauses. “I mean, I guess I knew it was a risk I was taking.”

“It’s still not right. It’s not right at all. It’s none of anybody’s business,” Casey insists. “Nobody should _do_ that to anybody, tell their private business.”

“Well, no, but I’m pretty sure Perez Hilton doesn’t really care,” David says with a sigh. “Shit, Case, I have to get out on the field in a minute.”

“Okay, David. Call me later if you just want to talk, alright? Or if you want me to describe exactly which parts I’d put into the woodchipper and in which order. I might work on a detailed list.”

David laughs. “Okay. Bye, Case.”

“Goodbye, David,” Casey says. “Be safe out there today.” 

 

**Tuesday, September 24th, 2013: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

After [Hudson hangs up](http://storyof3boys.livejournal.com/105397.html), Dave stares his phone for a while, trying to assimilate the information, then he pulls up Casey’s number and calls him. Casey should probably know to call off the woodchipper-crimes.

It takes Casey a little longer than usual to answer, but he sounds like his usual self. “David! Hi!”

“You can call off the woodchipper, Case,” Dave says.

“I can? I mean, you told me not to woodchip anyone, so I _totally_ wasn’t planning to put anybody in the woodchipper one limb at a time, I swear,” Casey says, sounding like that’s exactly what he was planning.

“Yeah, that blind item thing wasn’t about me,” Dave admits quietly, looking around him. 

“It wasn’t?” Casey asks. “Are you sure? How do you know?”

“I’m sure.” Dave pauses. Hudson told him to say hello to Casey, after all, which – that was _probably_ permission to mention it all to Casey. Still, he’s out in the middle of campus, so what he says is just, “Hudson said to tell you hey.”

“Oh, you talked to Finn? What did he say about the blind item? Did he think it was— _David_!” Casey suddenly exclaims. “David, was that blind item about _Finn_?”

“He seemed pretty convinced it was, yeah,” Dave says softly, standing with his back against a wall. “Said he knew what it was talking about.”

“Really? Finn?” Casey sounds dubious. “I don’t think that makes any sense, David. Do you think he’s right?”

“Who am I to doubt it?” Dave says with a little shrug. “He wasn’t— I mean, I don’t know, Case. I didn’t ask him for details. But he knew what he was saying.”

“Okay, then. Okay. So, Finn, not you,” Casey says. “Hmm. See, I still think the woodchipper’s in play here, David.”

Dave laughs. “I think the woodchipper could be in play on general principle, really. Don’t you think so?”

“I think we just settled on our plans for Christmas break,” Casey says. “Do you think the woodchipper will have to fly cargo, or can we buy it a seat?”

 

**Saturday, October 5th, 2013: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Dave ducks out of the locker room a little earlier than most of his teammates. First string doesn't mean he has to stick around, especially since its likely temporary, and he's still just offensive line.

Sometimes he does miss how Hudson actually appreciated the O–line, though.

But he has plans for the evening, and he supposes that either Josh never got that 3-date memo that most other guys at Tech did, or he didn't follow it. It's the sixth time they've been out, seventh if Dave counts the first night, and Dave thinks that probably crosses some kind of line into actual dating, especially if you add in the occasional phone call.

It makes him a little nervous, if he's completely honest with himself. There's commitments he won't make and a firm line he won't cross, and he's not sure how to bring those up exactly.

He and Josh haven't done anything sexually that's new for Dave, but it's probably moving that way, and Dave isn't sure how he's supposed to explain his stance. It isn't that he doesn't trust Josh, exactly – it's just that he doesn't trust anyone in Atlanta enough to let them fuck him. Self-confirmed rumors, abstract sexuality, all of that has been fine. A report that one of the offensive linemen let himself get fucked? He's not sure how to come back from that. The team is great, but he suspects that's a line they don't want to cross either. They don't want to hear about it, and that's fine.

Opposing teams, though; they are what Dave really worries about. He could still be a target on or off the field. LSU taught everyone that; Hudson's blind item just confirmed that there's plenty of interest in the outer world.

Dave doesn't want to be someone's lottery ticket or a path to their fifteen minutes of fame.

He changes quickly and gets out of the dorm before any of the others make it back. If he times it right, they'll all be gone when Dave returns. He meets Josh in the courtyard, walking to the parking garage and climbing into Dave's truck before they do more than exchange a greeting.

"Great game," Josh says with a grin. They had been out twice when Josh called him after that week's game, shocked that Dave was on the team. 

"A win is always a great game," Dave counters, laughing. 

"Good point!"

"And now it's time for a good meal," Dave says wryly as his stomach growls. 

"I haven't been to this place," Josh says. "I know I should explore around campus more."

"It's just a diner, but the food is amazing," Dave explains, turning onto Ponce. 

Dinner is nice; no one looks twice at a same-sex couple in Atlanta, as far as Dave has observed. Josh covers the check and then looks at Dave with a grin as they leave. "Back to yours?"

"Shouldn't be anyone in for a while."

Dave is right; all three of his dorm mates are out, and he and Josh go into Dave's bedroom, shutting the door before sitting down on the bed next to each other. 

"I'm not going to stop calling tomorrow," Josh announces suddenly, "and I hope that you won't either."

Dave nods slowly, because he also doesn't want a gay remake of that sixties song about loving someone the next morning. This isn't that kind of relationship, and if Josh thinks they're suddenly making some sort of commitment, Dave needs to straighten that out.

"Not that it has to be, uh, a bigger deal than that," Josh rushes to say, like he suddenly read Dave's mind. Dave nods again. "Just two guys who are having a good time together, having a different kind of fun. Right?"

"Right," Dave nods, a little relieved. At some point he's going to have to have one of those conversations with Josh, but at least one of them can be put off, is what he can't help thinking as he watches Josh remove his T-shirt before Dave does the same. 

Dave doesn't protest when Josh crawls out of bed later. There's a hesitance to his movements that suggests he wants Dave to ask him to stay, to spend the night, but Dave doesn't and won't, and the sooner Josh realizes that particular piece of information, the better off they are. Even if Dave wanted to—and he doesn't—he can't.

 

**Saturday, October 5th, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Rick**

Taylor’s always saying “in Mary Jane veritas,” which supposedly means pot makes people tell the truth. Rick can’t argue with that; not only does it make people tell the truth, but sometimes they start talking truth and won’t shut up about it. 

“She’s got this thing she does with her tongue and her fingers at the same time,” Taylor says. “And I’m just all, ‘shiiit, Kate!’”

“Ohmigod, stop,” Casey whispers. “Rick, make him stop.”

“Casey, nothing in the world can make Taylor stop once he gets going,” Rick says. “’cause of the veritas.”

“I _hate_ the veritas,” Casey groans, taking the joint from Tim. Like he usually does, he holds it a little too long after he smokes it, like he doesn’t really want to give it up, but Rick elbows him and he finally passes it.

“’M just telling you how good it is,” Taylor says, his grin a little too wide. 

“I shouldn’t have ever let them meet,” Casey says, snatching the joint back from Rick and taking another hit before leaning across Rick to hand it to Tucker. “I was happier never knowing this stuff.”

“Aww, this isn’t much,” Tim says with a laugh. “Don’t ask him about his plans for next weekend.”

“His mom’s letting him take the motorcycle,” Tucker adds.

“Nooooo,” Casey whines. “Please, please, _please_ don’t tell us your plans.”

“First, I had to use my mom’s credit card, too, so I could order a—”

“Alicia had sex with me,” Rick blurts out, and everybody else goes silent for a couple of minutes, just passing the joint around like they have no response to that.

Finally, Taylor starts talking again. “I can send you the name of that website.”

“No, I think I’m good,” Rick says. 

“Um. Congratulations?” Casey offers. 

“Thanks!” Rick says jovially. 

“You sure?” Taylor asks. “’Cause, dude, there’s better stuff out there than what you get at the Rite Aid. You sure she had a good time?”

“Probably better if it don’t get too complicated at the outset,” Rick says, taking the joint when Casey passes it. 

Tucker laughs. “Careful, Rick. Taylor’ll find you a book or DVD or something.”

“Christmas presents,” Taylor says thoughtfully. “I could be done on Cyber Monday.”

“ _I_ never talk about details,” Casey grumbles, glaring sorta half-heartedly at Taylor. It’s hard to glare whole-heartedly when you’re stoned, Rick figures. 

“You didn’t have to talk about ’em,” Rick points out. “We heard ’em from the next room over.” Taylor, Tim, and Tucker all whoop with laughter, Tucker whistles, and Casey turns bright red and glares at Rick a little closer to whole-heartedly. “Well, alright,” Rick says apologetically. “To be fair, we really only heard Brown.”

“Ohmigod,” Casey mumbles, and puts his hands over his face. “Everybody just stop talking. Too much veritas.”

“What else is there to talk about?” Taylor jokes.

From behind his hands, Casey suggests, “Did you see Puck and Kurt and Finn at your concert? You could talk about that. There was a baby. And a _kid_!”

“What?” Taylor asks. “A baby and a kid? I thought I saw Finn, ’cause who else is that tall, but.”

“Yes, Puck’s kid and, um. A baby. She was… their sister, I think? A baby sister,” Casey says, nodding to himself. “She said ‘shit’. It was funny.”

“It’s funny when kids swear,” Rick says, nodding in agreement, and keeping on nodding, ’cause that’s always one of the best parts of smoking pot, how it feels when he nods. “I taught Abby how to—”

“Wait, back that up,” Taylor says, interrupting. “Puck has a kid?”

“Yes,” Casey says, speaking slowly and clearly. “Puck has a kid. A girl kid. She’s very small, and her name is… um. Beth! It’s Beth.”

Taylor looks at Rick. “Did we know Puck had a kid? I don’t think I knew about a kid. How did he get a kid already?” He looks very confused. “That’s weird.”

“ _I_ knew he had a kid,” Casey says. “I knew. He didn’t just get her. He had her already. Well, he didn’t _have_ her, have her. Quinn. Remember Quinn? Quinn from PFLAG.”

“You’re getting me back for the conversation about Kate,” Taylor says with a frown. 

“Why would I make up a kid named Beth?” Casey asks, scowling through a curl of smoke coming up from the joint in his hand. He pauses to take a hit from it and hands the nearly-gone joint back to Taylor. “If I made up a kid, I wouldn’t call her Beth. I’d call her, um. Something. Something not-Beth. Um. I’d call her… um.” He shakes his head and starts to giggle. “I don’t know what I’d call her!”

“I still think you’re making her up,” Taylor grumbles. “Maybe you got confused with Kurt and Finn’s little sister.”

“I didn’t see two of the _same_ girl,” Casey insists. “I saw two different girls. One was small and one was smaller. But if you don’t believe me, that’s fine. I don’t even care if you believe me. Rick believes me.”

“Sure,” Rick says. “That sounds like something that could maybe be true, I guess.” He nods, because this does sound like it’s at least possibly true. “Why not?”

“See?” Casey says. “Rick believes me.”

“Rick also thinks that it happens to all the guys,” Taylor says, and Tim snorts.

“Yep,” Rick says, then narrows his eyes at Taylor. “Hey! I don’t think that!”

Taylor dissolves into laughter. “Aww, Rick. I love you, man.”

“Well, I love all y’all, veritas or not,” Rick says. “But I still don’t think that.”

 

**Wednesday, October 9th, 2013: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Dave doesn’t look at his phone when he pulls it out of his pocket between practice and dinner, figuring that maybe Casey’s calling about something. “Hello?”

“Hey, Shep,” Brown says in response. “You got a minute?”

Once Brown had graduated from McKinley and headed off to Clemson, Dave had more or less thought he’d just see him once a year. He definitely hadn’t expected Brown to call him. “Brown? Yeah. What’s up?”

“So I’m driving into Atlanta this weekend,” Brown says. He sounds worn out. “Figured you know the city. Where should I go?”

“What, you’re going to drive in, go to a club, and then… drive back?” Dave asks, a little incredulous.

“I just need a break, man,” Brown says. “I just need a fucking break. Even just a few hours.”

Dave sighs. “Okay. Drive up Saturday morning, you can crash in the common area in the dorm, and Pride’s this weekend, too.”

“Oh. Shit, yeah that’s right, I guess it is,” Brown says. “You sure? I know things are— are you sure?”

“I don’t even want to imagine what kind of shit you put up with out there,” Dave says bluntly. “You need a break, you get a break.”

“Yeah it’s… it’s bad, man. It’s bad,” Brown says quietly. “Thanks, Shep. I owe you. Seriously, I owe you.”

“Just don’t waste it,” Dave says, snorting. “Atlanta Pride’s gonna blow you away, Brown. I mean it.”

“That’s the plan,” Brown answers. “See you on Saturday. Text me some directions?”

“Yeah, you got it. It’s pretty much I–85 straight in, second exit after it merges with I–75. Follow the yellow jackets and all that shit.” Dave pauses. “See you Saturday.” He ends the call and stares at the phone. “Well, huh.”

“Well, huh, what?” Ty asks as Ty and Coop walk up. 

“That was Miles Brown.”

“The Miles douche?” Coop asks. “What’d he want?”

“A break from Cle—” Dave stops and laughs. “The Miles douche? Really?”

Coop shrugs. “Is that description wrong or something?”

“Nah.” Dave shakes his head once, grinning. “But yeah, he wanted to know what club to head to, Clemson’s got a bye this week. He’s an idiot if he’s going to go clubbing and drive back that night, so I told him he could just crash in the living room. Or the kitchen, but I guess carpet’s more comfortable.”

“What?” Coop asks. 

“Are you crazy?” Ty stops and stares at Dave. “What are you thinking?”

“You can’t stand that guy!” Coop adds. 

“Well, yeah, but if everything was reversed,” Dave tries to explain. “I mean, it’s not about him being him, he’s just— any guy out there that’s playing college ball and isn’t straight, I’d do the same thing.”

“You’re a better man than me, Special K,” Coop says, shaking his head. “Taking him in after the shit he’s pulled.”

“Guy I went to high school with said we take care of our own.” Dave shrugs. “And that’s what we do.”

 

**Saturday, October 12th, 2013: Atlanta, Georgia — Miles**

Miles is only at Karofsky’s dorm long enough to park, change, and promise to stay out of Karofsky’s hair as much as possible. After that, Miles heads out into the city, walking in the direction Karofsky pointed him, wearing a pair of tight jeans, a tight black tank top, and the opinion that if he can’t find a hookup by noon, he’ll consider it a personal failing.

He finds one by 10:45, down at the festival in the park. A good-looking black guy, early or mid twenties maybe, identifies himself as Demetrius and starts chit-chatting with Miles, and it’s only a few minutes before Miles has it pegged for what it is.

“So, we going back to your place or what?” Miles asks pointedly. Demetrius laughs and shortly thereafter, they’re walking away from the park, towards a row of brick-sided apartment buildings. Miles has a flash realization that this isn’t at all like picking somebody up at the center, that he doesn’t know Demetrius and neither does anybody else he knows, there’s no accountability here, and that anything could happen if Miles goes home with random guys in the city like this. It’s a scary thought, but what’s scarier is how quickly Miles realizes he doesn’t even care. It’s been so long, he can’t find a lot of energy to muster a shit to give about the risks.

Nothing bad happens, though. Demetrius wears a condom when he fucks Miles on a big bed in a tidy little apartment, and Miles comes with a shuddering, almost-sobbed “oh thank _god_ ” that makes Demetrius laugh at him. Demetrius can’t understand the relief Miles feels after months of pretending to be oh-so-straight Clemson wide receiver number 80. They swap phone numbers after, because it’s the classy thing to do, then Miles walks back towards the park.

Miles eats some lunch and listens to some music down at the festival, then strolls through the booths for a while, where he meets a cute little blond hipster named Marcus with black-rimmed glasses and a little slouchy hat, who walks him all the way across the city to an area he informs Miles is called Atlantic Station. Miles can see the IKEA from the window of the apartment Marcus apparently shares with two roommates, not that Miles cares about the roommates, unless they’re planning on fucking him later, too. It’s a quick hipster fuck, with lots of kissing beforehand and a failed attempt on Marcus’s part to snuggle after, then Miles heads back over to the Pride festival.

After he gets back to the festival, Miles listens to a few more bands, then hangs out by one of the liquor booths until someone asks him if he wants a drink. He does. Adrian—a skinny guy with long dark hair, who looks like he might be Indian or Pakistani—buys Miles a drink, then a second drink, and then they walk back across the city towards Adrian’s place. When Miles realizes they’re headed back to Georgia Tech campus, he almost backs out, because he was serious about staying out of Karofsky’s hair and not stepping on his toes or in any way getting in the way of any of his body parts. Adrian lives on the opposite end of campus, though, and he makes fantastic noises when Miles fucks him on the broken-down sofa in his graduate housing living room.

By the time it gets dark, Miles has found his way to a club, and gets arm-banded without even being carded— not that Miles has to buy his own drinks that night. A big ol’ bear buys Miles something pink and fizzy, then dances with him for twenty minutes. A pretty blue-eyed boy at the far end of the bar sends a shot of apple-flavored vodka in Miles’ direction, then offers him some kind of bright green tablet, which Miles swallows. Afterwards, the pretty boy sucks Miles off against the bathroom wall; he also swallows.

Miles spends hours dancing, sweaty bodies pressed against his, hands on his hips or waist or anywhere else hands can go, mouths sometimes pressing to his bare back—his shirt disappeared somewhere, somewhen, he doesn’t even know—or his neck. His phone says it’s almost 3am when he heads back in the direction of Karofsky’s dorm, and while he’s starting to come down from the bright green pill, everything is still spangled and warm. He manages to actually find his way back to the dorm, and he’s so pleased with himself that he does a dizzy little spin before he texts Karofsky to come let him up.

Karofsky shows up a few minutes later, some blond guy with a lot of teeth following just behind him. 

“That is a _lot_ of glitter,” teeth-boy says.

“Thanks,” Miles says, giving him a huge grin. “Not precisely sure where it came from, just between you and me.”

“ _This_ is the guy sleeping in your dorm tonight?” teeth-boy hisses at Karofsky, who rolls his eyes a little bit. 

“I told you why. Apparently neither of you care, but I want to go to bed, so.”

“Who are _you_ , anyway?” Miles asks teeth-boy, teetering and swaying on his feet a little. “You don’t look like a football player.”

He laughs. “I’m not.” Then he sticks out a hand. “Josh. Nice to meet you…?”

Miles cranks the smile up, more out of habit than anything else. “Miles Brown. Nice to meet you, Josh who’s not a football player… and who apparently is sleeping elsewhere. I’m gonna go fall over on a futon or something now, if it’s all the same to you.”

“Yeah, come on, Brown,” Karofsky says, pushing the door open for Josh and then pointing towards the staircase. “Just three floors up.”

“Those are some _tall_ -ass stairs, Shep,” Miles says, trailing behind Karofsky to the stairs. 

“No stairs at Clemson, either?” Karofsky asks, sounding like he’s about to laugh.

“They don’t allow ’em in South Carolina,” Miles says. “Gives people ideas about moving up.”

“I believe you, actually,” Karofsky says, unlocking the door to his dorm. “There’s an extra pillow and blanket on the couch. Can’t guarantee that you won’t hear some noise in four or five hours.”

“Cool, yeah, that’s cool,” Miles says, walking towards the couch. He stops and looks back at Karofsky. “Thanks for letting me crash here, man. Seriously. It’s bad. It’s real bad up there.”

“Yeah,” Karofsky says quietly. “I figured. But you’d do the same if it was reversed, so.” He shrugs. “Night.”

Miles nods. “Night.” He practically falls onto the couch, and it’s not long before he’s asleep. 

 

**Monday, October 14th, 2013: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Josh likes to call Dave on Monday evenings, while Dave's in the middle of the week's assignment in the architecture building. It is a nice break of sorts, and usually the conversation is light enough not to be annoying. 

"Just think about it, though. What you could accomplish," Josh says this week. 

"Yeah, and think about what I might not accomplish personally," Dave retorts. "I know this isn't LSU, but that doesn't make it some kind of Stonewall University, either."

"See, you know our history, you know how important it could be to other kids out there," Josh argues. 

"I'm not going to sign up to be the poster boy for this," Dave says with a sigh. "I'm not going to hold a press conference or create a foundation or give inspirational talks. None of that's me. I just want to play football and get my degree. That's all."

"You're limiting yourself."

"Maybe. But I'm okay with that, right now," Dave says. "Anyway. What was that you said about the sidewalk outside Skiles?"

 

**Wednesday, October 16th, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

Casey finds out from Coach Brum at conditioning that the meet schedule for November has been rearranged, which means the trip down to Atlanta he’s been planning for Connect with Tech now starts in the middle of a meet. Shannon gets on the phone with somebody at Georgia Tech, and Casey suddenly finds himself enrolled in the Connect with Tech for _that_ upcoming weekend, though it all has to go through David, since Shannon sort of volunteered him to be Casey’s place to sleep for the two nights he’s in Atlanta.

He doesn’t usually call David on Wednesday nights, because he has his Pride Alliance meetings, but things do need to be sorted out quickly, so he sends David a text.

_Can I stay with you 19-21 for connect with tech?_

Five minutes pass before Casey gets David’s response: 

_This weekend? Like the admissions thing?_

_Is that alright? Last minute scheduling mishap_ , Casey texts back. 

Another four or five minutes pass before David calls.

“Hi!” Casey says. “I’m sorry if I interrupted things!”

“Nah, no problem,” David says. “I just was a little confused, but— anyway. Yeah, this weekend’s fine. There’s plenty of room in the dorm. You flying in?”

“We’re trying to find a flight. Aunt Shannon’s looking for one on Saturday, so I don’t have to go straight from the airport to the thing,” Casey says. “You don’t mind if I’m there an extra night? If you mind, I can go in and tell her just to have me come in Sunday.”

“No, no, that’s fine, just wondered if you wanted me to meet you down at Hartsfield-Jackson or the MARTA station or something.”

“MARTA, is that the subway? I think, hmm. I think I’ll ride on the subway! I’ve always wanted to try a subway.”

“Okay, so it’ll be the North Avenue station, I’ll find you there if you text me when you land?”

“Okay! Maybe you can show me some places in Atlanta on Saturday, since I don’t have to do the thing until Sunday,” Casey says. 

“Well, we’ll walk right past the Varsity,” David says. “They have milkshakes.”

“I _do_ like milkshakes!”

David laughs for a few moments. “Yeah, I thought you’d like that. Oh, man, the guys are going to be so excited.”

“Oh, they will be?” Casey asks, slightly confused. “I was worried they’d be upset I was invading their space for a few days. They don’t mind, though?”

“Nah, I think they’d like to meet you, so that’ll be cool,” David says. “I mean, we had—” David cuts himself off abruptly. “No, they’ll be cool with it, I promise.”

“Oh. Okay, then. So, I guess I’ll see you on Saturday!”

“Saturday,” David agrees. “Bye, Case.”

“Bye, David! I’ll talk to you on, um, tomorrow!” Casey waits for David to hang up before ending the call, then he shouts, “Aunt Shannon! David says it’s okay! We have to book a flight now!”

 

**Saturday, October 19th, 2013: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Dave finishes changing after the game and shrugs off Josh’s suggestion about getting a quick bite to eat. “I told you yesterday,” Dave says firmly. “I’m meeting Casey at the MARTA station.”

“And I didn’t even know who Casey was,” Josh complains. “But fine. We’re still on for that movie tomorrow afternoon?”

“Yeah, that should be fine. I’ll let you know for sure later,” Dave says, already walking towards North Avenue. 

He ends up at the MARTA station a little earlier than necessary, even after he stops for a hot dog to-go from the Varsity, but he sits on the stairs outside and leans against the wall, figuring he can’t be that early. Dave pulls his sunglasses back on and stands once he finishes his hot dog, tossing out his trash as he looks around at the people spilling out. 

The small crowd thins out pretty quickly, though, and all that’s left is someone that Dave doesn’t immediately recognize, even though he knows it has to be Casey. Casey’s hair is longer than any of the pictures Dave’s seen on Facebook, lightened from what Dave suspects is a combination of sun and chlorine-treated pools, and the barely-enough weight is a thing of the past, with actual muscles on his frame. Dave grins slowly and brings his hands up to his mouth. “Hey Case!” 

Casey startles and turns in Dave’s direction, his familiar disgruntled expression giving way to a wide smile. “David! Hi!” he calls out, and starts sprinting in Dave’s direction. He skids to a stop directly in front of Dave and bounces in place. “Hi,” he repeats. “I’m in Atlanta!”

Dave laughs. “Yeah, you are.” He steps forward enough to grab Casey in a hug. “C’mon, you want one of those milkshakes?”

Casey hugs Dave back tightly and doesn’t let go right away, but he nods. “Yes. Milkshakes are good.”

“How was your flight?” Dave asks. “Did you like flying?”

“Yes,” Casey says, then seems to suddenly realize he’s still hugging Dave, because he lets go quickly and takes a step back. “They gave me pretzels. I didn’t eat them though. They were suspect.”

“Probably a wise decision,” Dave says with a nod, heading towards the crosswalk. “Anything special you want to see about Tech that isn’t on the approved plan?”

“Um. I don’t even know what’s on the approved plan,” Casey confesses. “I didn’t think I was coming to one of these until late November, so I didn’t really do much advance preparation.”

“Well, anything you can think that they might not want on the approved plan, anyway,” Dave amends. 

“I need to see the pool,” Casey says. “That’s important.”

“That we can definitely do,” Dave says. “Maybe after dinner?”

“Sure! Anytime is good. I don’t really have anything I have to do until tomorrow. Then I guess I have to be oriented. I feel like a compass.”

“I’ll be sure to hide the magnets in the dorm, then,” Dave says. “So’s to not mess up your orientation and all.”

“Oh, that’s helpful. Otherwise I might try to walk north and accidentally walk all the way to Florida!” Casey says. 

“Dangers of magnets. The public should be more aware,” Dave says solemnly. He points to the Varsity with a quick grin. “Here we go. Milkshakes.”

Casey is thrilled with the entire experience of being at the Varsity, ordering a huge frosted orange before declaring that he wants to come to the Varsity all the time. Dave laughs as they walk across the interstate and he points out the buildings visible to them. 

When they get to the dorm, Ty, Coop, and Danny are all in the living room area, almost staring at the door as Dave opens it. 

“Where is he?” Danny asks. 

“Uh.” Dave slides to the side. “Casey, that’s Ty, Coop, and Danny. Guys, Casey.”

Casey raises one hand in a small wave. “Um. Hi?”

“You freaked him out, Danny,” Coop says, smacking Danny on the back of the head.

“Danny’s mostly harmless,” Dave says to Casey. “Coop, less so.”

“All true,” Ty says with a nod. “Hey, Casey. Feels so weird that we’re just now finally meeting you!”

“I don’t even have my towel,” Casey murmurs, before smiling nervously at Ty. “Hi, Ty. Yes, it’s, um. Kind of weird, yes.”

“You look different than you did that time on Brit’s show,” Danny says to Casey. “Real different.”

“Oh. You saw— _oh!_ ” Casey has a look of dawning horror on his face as he turns to Dave. “David, you didn’t tell me that you— Oh! She _made_ me! It was a kidnapping!” His face starts to turn red and Coop snickers. 

“Now he sorta looks like he did on _Fondue for Two_ ,” Coop says. 

“They’re uh. Big fans of the show,” Dave says to Casey. “Also the Butter Nibs cam.”

“I just don’t _understand_ that cam, David. She’s not like Maru. She doesn’t even _do_ anything. Why do people want to watch that cat?” Casey asks, shaking his head. 

“Don’t ask me,” Dave agrees. “But they do.”

“But Brittany is very nice,” Casey says to Danny. “Even if she is a kidnapper. Also, I think her cat feasts on human flesh.”

“Oh, she was making her mom get Lord Tubbington some treatment for his addictions,” Danny says with a nod. “Miss Butter Nibs doesn’t feast on anything but the food Brittany gives her.”

“That’s, um. Good,” Casey says, looking at Dave pleadingly. 

“C’mon, I’ll show you my room,” Dave says, nodding his head slightly and going down the hall. Casey follows him, and Dave shuts the door behind him. 

Casey breathes a loud sigh of relief. “They’re all… very nice,” he says.

Dave laughs. “Yeah, they are. Sorry about that, didn’t know they’d all be just waiting.”

“I can see why Danny and Brittany get along so well, though.” Casey smiles at Dave. “They both really, really like cats.”

“They’re also both a little… well.” Dave shrugs. “They’re not the most well-rounded, intelligent individuals? Is that a nice way to put it?”

“They’re, um. Eclectic! I think they’re eclectic cat-enthusiasts,” Casey says, nodding his head. 

“So, well.” Dave gestures around the room. “This is it. Coop calls it my spartan Lutheran lifestyle. For a while we had a big picture of a unicycle on the door to the hall.”

“Of course you did,” Casey says, like that’s a perfectly normal thing to have. “Your walls need… oh! They need the mac n’ cheese chart, David! Poster-sized.”

“You think so? I wasn’t sure if maybe it should be framed in the kitchen, as a reference.”

“But if you put it in your room, it turns into _art_ , and then you’ll feel cultured,” Casey counters. “Maybe a big one in here, and a small one in there?”

Dave shrugs. “I don’t know, Case. Do I really want to be yogurt?”

“I don’t know, David. _Do_ you?” Casey asks, then starts to laugh. “You know, I think that might be a little bit like the sugar cookie thing.”

“Maybe so,” Dave laughs. “Maybe so.” He sits down on the bed, and Casey sits beside him. After a minute or so, Casey slips his hand into Dave’s and squeezes once. 

“I have to say, I—” Dave starts to speak, when there’s a quick knock on the door. 

“Special K,” Ty says. “Josh’s here.”

Dave sighs, because he probably should have expected Josh to turn up. He stands up and shakes his head, his hand slipping from Casey’s. “Thanks!” he calls through the door to Ty. 

“Who’s Josh?” Casey asks. 

“Oh.” Dave frowns a little, walking towards the door. “Uh, he’s. I.” Dave’s not sure what he’d say to anyone who asked that question. “He’s a.” Dave stops as the look on Casey’s face changes from curiosity to one of slightly sad understanding, and Casey nods slightly. 

Dave grimaces and opens the door, not very happy about Josh’s decision to show up. “Josh,” he says as he walks down the hall. 

“I just thought I’d come by to meet this elusive Casey,” Josh says, smiling. “And if he’s thinking about coming down to Tech, well, the more perspectives the better, right?”

“Uh, sure. Josh, Casey. Casey, Josh,” Dave says, gesturing between the two of them. Casey doesn’t say anything in response. He just stares at Josh. 

Josh gives Casey an odd look before smiling again. “Hi, Casey. I’d say I’ve heard a lot about you, but well.” He forces a laugh. “Dave’s so private, I guess.”

“Hello,” Casey says, formally. “Same.”

“Wow, Special K,” Danny says. “Wow.”

“Maybe we… should… uh. Go,” Coop says, standing up and starting to slowly walk backwards towards his room. 

Dave, Casey, and Josh all stand in the living room area without speaking, and Dave fights not to let the wince he’s feeling show on his face. He should have figured something else out from the moment he heard Casey was arriving, because their unspoken agreement that they don’t discuss some topics doesn’t seem to be holding up that well. It had seemed so much easier not to mention Josh to Casey, since Dave knew it wasn’t any kind of long-term thing. And he certainly hadn’t thought that Josh needed to know anything about Casey; he wasn’t important enough to Dave, in the long run, to _get_ to know who Casey was. 

“Well,” Dave finally says. “Casey and I were going to go with Ty and Coop and Danny to dinner, and then I was going to show Casey the pool, so.” He nods his head towards the door, looking at Josh. 

“Oh, right. I know, you have plans. I’m sorry,” Josh says. “Really, I know, I shouldn’t have dropped by, I apologize.” He turns to Casey. “It was nice to meet you, Casey. I hope you enjoy your visit.”

“Yeah,” Casey says quietly. “Thanks.”

“Oh, and I don’t think tomorrow will work after all,” Dave says as Josh walks through the kitchen. “Sorry.”

“Yeah. That’s fine,” Josh says, still smiling. “Later, Dave.” 

Dave nods once and exhales as the door closes, and Dave stands there silently for a few minutes. “Sorry,” he says very quietly, then more loudly. “Anything particular you want for dinner? Or want to see on the way?”

Casey doesn’t respond at first, then he shakes his head slightly. “No,” he says softly. 

“Well. We’ll figure something good out.” There was a time Dave would have yelled ‘fuck’ really loudly or put his fist through some drywall, but instead he takes yet another deep breath and tries to figure out if there is any one thing he should be doing. “You want to try to swim when we go over to the pool?”

Casey shakes his head again. “I can swim there next fall,” he says, still quiet. 

“So, Casey,” Ty says suddenly, from the corner where he and Danny are still sitting. “We didn’t realize you were even applying to Tech!”

Casey starts to look slightly confused before he just looks sad again, and he nods his head. “Yes. It’s my first choice school. Well, only choice school.” He shrugs one shoulder. “There’s really not any place else. That, um. That I want to go.”

Dave frowns slightly as Casey looks at Ty, and he registers that Ty’s responding to Casey without really grasping what the conversation is about. Dave isn’t sure where the breakdown was, between what Coach told Dave and what Casey’s saying now, because they’re so vastly different that Dave can’t really reconcile them. Dave and Lisa have talked plenty about Dave making decisions for Casey that he shouldn’t have made, and leaping to conclusions about Casey’s motivations, but it never occurred to Dave to question what Coach had told him. Coach was Casey’s guardian, and Dave’s limited experience was that someone’s guardian would have _some_ idea of where their kid wanted to go to college. 

He hears Casey’s voice again, and Dave forces himself to make sense of the words. “No,” Casey is saying to Ty, his tone dismissive. “There’s nothing at Clemson for me.”

Dave resists the urge to put his head in his hands and slowly shake it. He doesn’t even know what to call this – a breakdown in communication, maybe. One thing is painfully clear: he has absolutely no idea what he’s doing. 

 

**Saturday, October 19th, 2013: Atlanta, Georgia — Ty**

Ty looks around the room, first at Special K and then at Casey, before glancing at Danny. He shakes his head. If he leaves it to anyone else, they’re all going to be standing there in twelve hours. Ty claps his hands together once and then yells down the hall. 

“Coop! Get your keys, it’s time for everyone to go to dinner!” Then Ty turns to Danny. “Ready to go eat?”

“Yeah. Yeah,” Danny says, nodding vigorously and standing up. “Dinner sounds like a great idea!”

“Somebody say dinner?” Coop asks, sticking his head out of his room. “Is it safe?”

“Yeah, remember we’re taking your gas hog,” Ty says cheerfully. “Casey, you have to see this thing. I think it gets two miles a gallon.”

Casey nods his head with a non-committal, “Okay.” 

Ty takes a few steps forward and gestures for Casey to follow him. “He parks it in two spots so that it ‘won’t get scratched’ but I think really Coop can’t drive well enough to make it fit in one spot.” He glances over his shoulder and glares at Special K, jerking his head towards the door, which seems to be enough to get him moving robotically behind them.

“Hey!” Coop protests. “These little spaces around here aren’t meant for a full-size vehicle, is all.” 

“Actually, the spots in the garage are bigger than the ones in the lots in the middle of campus,” Danny says, then shrugs. “Hey, Casey, did you see— Huh. You look like you shrunk.”

Special K jerks his head up at that and glares at Danny, though Ty’s not sure exactly why that’s such a horrible thing to say. 

“Maybe you left your shrinking potion out again, Danny,” Ty says. “Thought we were saving that for Coop.”

“What’d I ever do to you people?” Coop asks. “Even driving y’all around, but you’re still giving me shit.”

“Coop, the day we stop giving you shit, I’d start panicking about dying of cancer or something, if I were you,” Ty says, finally getting the group of them out the door and down the hall. 

“I thought we were just gonna—” Danny stops himself. “Right. So Casey, what kinda food do you like? We got all kinds of stuff.”

“Um. Anything’s fine,” Casey says, looking in Danny’s direction without really making eye contact. 

“We just can’t leave Coop in charge of where to go, is all,” Ty explains to Casey. “If we did, it’d always be the same thing.”

“Oh. Um. I guess, um. Whatever everybody else wants is fine,” Casey says. 

“Does that mean I can pick, Ty?” Danny asks eagerly.

Ty laughs. “You’ve been waiting for this moment.”

“Oh no. Guys, you sure you want Danny picking the food?” Coop asks. “I mean, are you really sure you wanna do that?’

“How would you know if I could pick food or not, ’cause you never let me?” Danny says. “Anyway, I wanna go to the Vortex.”

“Burger does sound good,” Ty agrees. “Special K?”

“Oh, uh.” Special K sounds startled. “Yeah. Burgers are good.”

“Alright, that’s fine,” Coop concedes. “Hey, Casey. You eighteen yet?” Casey shakes his head. “Well, if they ask you for ID, just… uh. Pretend you don’t speak English, like you’re from Denmark or somewhere.”

“Scotland, with his hair,” Danny says sagely.

“They speak English in Scotland, you moron,” Coop says, smacking Danny on the arm. 

“I thought they spoke Scottish!”

Somehow, all five of them get in Coop’s SUV and to the Vortex without any problem. No one asks how old Casey is, which is a piece of good luck, and Ty manages to get them at a circular table instead of a booth. It’s loud in the Vortex, which Ty decides is also a bit of good luck, and the burgers live up to their reputation. 

Special K seems to unfreeze a little during the meal, but he keeps shooting sideways glances at Casey, who picks at his meal slowly. When they’re leaving the restaurant, Coop and Danny leading, Ty ends up at the back, which is why he even sees it. Special K shoots another one of those sideway glances at Casey, looking almost hopeful or something, and he reaches towards Casey’s hand, like he’s going to hold it. Casey almost flinches away though, pulling both of his hands in, and Special K’s face kind of falls. 

Ty sighs and shakes his head. Damn fools.

They climb back in Coop’s monstrosity and Coop drives towards the pool first, so Casey can see it and notice how big the damn thing is – which it is. Then Coop decides to give Casey the driving tour of campus, and Ty sits behind the passenger seat, alternating between watching Casey’s face and watching Special K’s. 

By the time Coop parks back in their deck, Ty’s decided that a movie or two is probably the only thing that can halfway salvage the evening. As soon as they get in the dorm, Ty tells everyone to sit, puts in a DVD, and starts making popcorn in the microwave. Nobody argues about the movie, the snack, or Ty’s choice of movie, and when he finally sits down, he feels almost smug. If only Special K and Casey were as easy to fix with a microwave and some electronics. 

Halfway through _Iron Man 2_ , Ty looks over and Casey’s dead asleep. The movie doesn’t seem to bother his sleep, though, so they keep watching the rest of the movie. When it ends, Ty stands up and turns off the television. 

“Night, boys,” he says, with a slight glare in Coop’s direction.

“What?” Coop says. “What’d I do?” He stands up and starts walking in the direction of his room. “Didn’t do anything at all, is what,” he mutters to himself as he walks through his doorway and closes the door behind him.

Danny doesn’t say a word, just stands up and waves at Ty and Special K as he yawns. When he’s in his room, Ty turns to Special K. “He going to sleep like that all night?”

Special K shrugs. “We should move him off the arm of the couch. It’s not that comfortable.” He slides Casey off the arm and onto a pillow, putting a blanket over him and then sighing. 

“Special K,” Ty starts. 

“Not now, Ty,” Special K says, holding up his hand. 

“Fine,” Ty says with a nod, heading towards his own room and going to bed. It’s hours later when he wakes up, heading to the bathroom, and when he’s done, he hears something down the hall. Ty walks quietly down the hall, peering into the living room, and he realizes the noise is Casey, obviously having some kind of nightmare. Special K’s already in there, though, sitting in the floor next to the couch and muttering something, one hand on Casey’s shoulder. Ty sighs and heads back to his room. By the time he gets up in the morning, Special K and Casey are both awake, sitting in the living room area with Danny, and nothing seems to have changed from when they were all out at dinner.

 

**Sunday & Monday, October 20th & 21st, 2013: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Once Coop’s awake on Sunday morning, Ty forces all five of them out to breakfast, though by the time Coop’s awake, Dave’s pretty sure it’s more like brunch. By the time they get back from the Silver Skillet, it’s getting close to the time Casey’s supposed to check in with the Connect with Tech people. Dave stands up to walk with him and Ty stands up too, without a word, but once they cross North Avenue, Ty starts a running commentary on the buildings they’re passing, the students out walking around, and pretty much every opinion Ty’s ever had about Georgia Tech. 

When they head back after dropping Casey off, Ty looks over at Dave. “Now, Special K, like I was gonna—”

“Still no, Ty,” Dave says, trying not to glare.

Ty holds up his hands, palms out, and nods a little. “Okay, gotcha.”

Dave works out, spends some time in the studio, and studies for the rest of the day, Casey not showing up until relatively late. When Dave wakes up once in the middle of the night, Casey is curled up in his bed, pressed against him, and Dave drops his face against the top of Casey’s head, taking a deep breath before pressing his lips against Casey’s hair. He goes back to sleep with one arm gently draped over Casey’s waist, and in the morning, Casey’s gone completely, even his backpack gone, with no sign that he was ever really there at all. 

When Dave finishes practice that afternoon, he checks his phone for messages, and there’s a single text from Casey waiting. 

_Thank you for letting me stay with you, talk to you on Tuesday_

Dave sighs and finishes getting dressed before he sends a one-word response: _anytime_.

When he goes to bed on Monday night, there’s a lone long red hair on his pillow, the only real proof Dave has that Casey was in fact in his bed the night before, and almost the only sign Casey was even in Atlanta at all. 

Dave sits down heavily on his bed and shakes his head. Most of the time, he doesn’t have a clue; it’s just miraculous that fewer people seem to catch on. 

 

**Monday, October 21st, 2013: Atlanta, Georgia — Casey**

Casey gets to the airport over two hours before his flight, so even after going through the security line, he has over an hour to wait before boarding. For all that he told David that his flight down was great—and as far as experiences go, it certainly wasn’t the _scariest_ experience—now that he knows what flying feels like, Casey’s even more nervous about boarding the plane. He’s still reeling from his visit at Georgia Tech. Not from the Connect with Tech, which was about what he expected, but from everything with David.

David and _that Josh_.

Casey pulls out his phone and calls Miles, hoping it’s late enough in the day that Miles can get away from his teammates and roommate and talk to him for a while, something he can’t really do with Clemson people around him. Sometimes, when Casey calls, Miles doesn’t answer; Casey tries very hard not to take it personally. He understands, at least intellectually, what it must be like for Miles at Clemson.

Luckily, Miles _does_ answer, his voice containing enough warmth that Casey knows Miles is alone. “Hey, Cherry! You back in Ohio?”

“Not yet,” Casey says. “I’m at the airport.”

“Well, how’d it go at Tech?” Miles asks. “You like the campus and all of that?”

“Yes. It was good. But… _Miles_. David has a _boyfriend_.”

Miles doesn’t answer at first, so Casey waits. Finally, Miles says, “Oh, does he, now?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Casey says. “His name is _Josh_.”

“Josh? Josh. Wait… is he the guy with the teeth?”

“Yes! Big horsey teeth! How did you know?” Casey asks.

“I was down there for Pride,” Miles says, like it ought to be perfectly obvious. “Met him coming out of the dorm. Big ol’ horse teeth on that boy.” Miles snorts and Casey can imagine him shaking his head in disgust. “That’s Shep’s boyfriend? I would’ve sworn he was just a one-off, way Shep was acting about him. How he could make a boyfriend out of _that_ when— well, never you mind about that. So, surprised you with it, did he?”

“Yes,” Casey says. “I had no idea. I was there, and that… that _Josh_ just showed up unannounced, and I asked David who he was, and he couldn’t even give me a straight answer.” He sighs. “But I knew, and he knew I knew.”

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that, Cherry,” Miles says. “I truly am.”

“He didn’t _tell_ me. Why wouldn’t he tell me?”

“Cherry, now… you know me and Shep don’t always see things eye to eye about, well, most stuff, but maybe he didn’t tell you ’cause it wasn’t any of your business?” Miles offers.

“But he’s my best friend. We’re supposed to tell each other things,” Casey argues.

“Not those kind of things,” Miles says bluntly. “That’s not how it is with you two. You tell him all about me after that first time you called him?”

“No,” Casey has to admit.

“And how great did that one phone call about the two of us go?” Miles presses.

“Not good,” Casey says. “But, still, he should—”

“No, you listen to me for minute here, Cherry,” Miles interrupts. “What did you think he was doing down there in Atlanta? Do you think he’s been living like a monk for the past year and a half?”

“Well, no, I didn’t, but—”

“Cherry, you spent the last year fucking your way across western Ohio, and I _know_ you haven’t said a word to him about that, and that’s fine, ’cause if he’s not the one you’re fucking, who you’re fucking isn’t any of his business. And you know what? The same goes for him,” Miles says. “Maybe he didn’t tell you ’cause he thought you’d be upset. Maybe he didn’t tell you ’cause he’s shy about it. Maybe it’s not as serious as you think. Long and short of it is, it was his to tell, and he didn’t. Be sad if you feel sad, but try not to be too pissed off at him for doing the same thing you did.”

Casey sighs loudly. “I didn’t like _that Josh_ ,” he says. “I didn’t like him at all.”

“Yeah, I didn’t like him either,” Miles says. “I don’t know how he even closes his mouth, teeth like that. Looks like a donkey smiling.”

Casey laughs once, faintly. “I keep thinking it’s going to be different, but it never is,” he says. “I keep hoping that maybe he’ll feel like I feel. But he’s got _that Josh_ now.”

Miles snorts. “Please. I saw that Josh, remember? College fling. Ten bucks and a blowjob says it won’t last past winter break.”

“ _Miles!_ ” Casey says, feeling his face flush. 

“Alright, fine,” Miles says, laughing. “Blowjob either way, but you’re definitely gonna owe me the ten bucks come Christmas time.”

 

**Saturday, October 26th, 2013: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Dave isn’t sure how he got talked into not only going to a Halloween party over at Spelman but also dressing up, but that’s why he’s dressed like a Mormon, carrying an action-figure bicycle.

“Are you ready, Special K?” Ty yells out. “Coop’s ready, and Danny’s still staying here to Skype with Brit.”

“Yeah, I’m ready,” Dave sighs. “Are you two paying me enough for this?”

“Nope,” Ty says cheerfully. “Remember, there’s some fine-looking women there. Make me look good! Talk me up!”

“Hey, me too!” Coop says from behind Ty. 

“Right, make up stuff about my dormmates, check,” Dave says with a grin. “I can do that.”

“Make up stuff about Coop. You don’t have to lie about me,” Ty says as they leave the dorm and head towards Coop’s SUV. “I’m actually that amazing.”

“Amazingly full of yourself,” Coop says. 

The party’s already crowded and loud when they get there, and despite Ty’s request to be talked up, he heads off after someone he knows as soon as they get inside, leaving Coop and Dave standing near a window.

“Hey, they’re hot, let’s go talk to them,” Coop says, gesturing with his boxing glove in the general direction of a group of girls. 

“I’ll take your word for it,” Dave says with a sigh, trailing after Coop. There’s a vampire, a scantily-clad cop, and another skimpy costume that Dave’s not sure what the girl is supposed to be, if he’s honest.

“David Karofsky!” says a voice behind him. “Is that you?”

“Naw, it’s his Mormon stunt double,” Coop retorts. “Wait, how do you know Special K’s name?”

Dave turns around and blinks twice at the Cleopatra-dressed person in front of him. “Mercedes?”

Mercedes grins hugely. “It is you! How are you? Who’s this?”

“Oh, this is Coop, one of my teammates. Coop, this is Mercedes. We went to high school together.”

“Nice to meet you,” Coop says, offering Mercedes a boxing glove to shake. “We’re meeting all kinds of people from Special K’s high school lately.”

“Really? Who?” Mercedes asks, but before Dave can even attempt to explain, Ty reappears. 

“Special K, have you— well, hello.” He turns to Mercedes with a bright smile. “Special K, do you know this gorgeous creature? You’ve been holding out on me!”

“Ty, this is Mercedes, we went to high school together. Mercedes, this is Ty, another one of my teammates.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Mercedes says, offering her hand, which Ty shakes before kissing the back of it. 

“Likewise. Cleopatra, right?” Ty says, gesturing to her costume. “Could I escort you to find some refreshment, my queen?”

“Geez, Ty, really?” Coop groans. 

Mercedes just smiles wider and nods at Ty. “That sounds great.”

Dave shrugs at Coop as Ty and Mercedes walk off, arm in arm. “It apparently worked for him, though,” Dave says.

“There any other girls here you know, Special K?” Coop asks, looking hopeful. “Maybe we should look and see.”

“Do I look like a one-man dating service?”

“Naw, you look like a Mormon, but I know that underneath that Mormon exterior lies the heart of a one-man dating service,” Coop says, grinning. “So let’s get cracking.”

 

**Monday, October 28th, 2013: Atlanta, Georgia — Ty**

Ty doesn’t mean to overhear Special K and Josh, but they’re in Special K’s bedroom with the door open, for once, which is already odd. Special K closes that door automatically, which means Josh must’ve decided it needed to be open for some reason or another. 

“It’ll be fun,” Josh is saying. “I know you usually don’t like to mix the football stuff with Pride Alliance stuff, but—”

“Yeah, for a reason,” Special K interrupts. “Let’s stop talking about this.”

“Okay, okay,” Josh says. “Don’t get mad, Dave.”

“I’m not mad, I’m just done talking about it,” Special K says. “What was it you were saying about the movies?”

“The new _Thor_ comes out in a couple of weeks. Nothing else big is coming out that day. Except for the One Direction 3D Concert Movie.” Josh laughs. “I don’t know anyone who wants to see that. Is that the kind of thing your friend Casey would go see instead of _Thor_?”

Special K actually _growls_ , though Josh doesn’t appear to notice. Special K probably glares at him or something, too. “I told you to stop that shit.”

“Sorry, sorry. You’re right.” Josh sounds placating. “I’ll stop.”

Ty’s not so sure about that, since he’s pretty sure he’s heard a version of this conversation every few days: little digs about Casey’s age, or his ‘outgoing personality’, or how he didn’t look very happy to be at Tech. Ty’s not so sure how Special K’s managing to keep from hitting the guy, because Ty’s felt like punching him a couple of times. 

“Yeah, you need to _actually_ stop this time,” Special K says. “And _Thor_ sounds good, but I can’t go see it Friday night, you know that.”

“Oh, right.” Josh must be a moron, Ty thinks, because he forgets about football a lot for someone who goes to all of the home games. “Saturday night, then?”

Ty shakes his head, grabs his Gatorade from the refrigerator, and leaves the dorm without Special K or Josh realizing he was even there. He just hopes he manages to overhear the time Special K actually _does_ get angry.


	14. November/December 2013

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not now doesn't mean not ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warnings: References to self-harm and mental health issues**
> 
>  
> 
> The Rambling Wrecks Volume III playlist is available for download [here](http://storyof3boys.livejournal.com/112213.html).

**Tuesday, November 5th, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

After Casey finishes the dinner dishes, he announces, “I’m going to my room to call David now.”

Shannon nods. “Did you want to watch anything on the TV later?”

“No, I’ve got a paper to work on,” Casey says. “So I’m disappearing for the rest of the night.”

Monty looks amused, but just says, “They’re showing the second half of that documentary at nine, if you change your mind.”

“If I’ve disappeared long enough, I might,” Casey concedes, then he goes to his room and calls David. The phone rings twice before David answers.

“Hello?”

“Hi.”

“Hey, Case. How’s it going?”

“I have to write a ten page paper on the short stories of Flannery O’Connor,” Casey says. “So, um. Guess?”

“Wow, that’s.” David laughs for a second. “I don’t know what to say about that, actually.”

“Exactly. Neither do I, but somehow I have to say it for ten whole pages,” Casey sighs. “How’s Atlanta?”

“Colder than last year this time, but that’s not saying a lot, really,” David says. “Big project due on Monday, so I know where I’ll be sleeping over the weekend.”

“They should put some hammocks up in there. Those tables can’t be comfortable.”

“Legend has it that every year there’s a petition for a couple of rooms filled with bunk beds, like medical residents have,” David says with a laugh. “So far there’s not, though.”

“Just be careful where you sleep, so you don’t wake up with a blue face!” Casey says. 

“That’s what the hoodie is for,” David says very seriously. “To cover up any stray blue.”

“I don’t know how you handle the stress of college,” Casey says. “You should quit and do something safe and more relaxing, like, um. Oh! Landmine detector. Or maybe raising killer whales.”

“Do you have to actually swim with the whales? If I just had to throw fish at them, that wouldn’t be too hard, right?” 

“Not if you’re raising them to be landmine detecting killer whales,” Casey says. “That makes it more complicated.”

“That sounds too complicated, maybe,” David admits. “But yeah. No real breaks. Not going to try for Thanksgiving this year.”

Casey sighs quietly and tries to keep the disappointment out of his voice. “Yeah, I didn’t think you’d make it. Maybe Christmas?”

“Yeah, even if we make it into a Bowl game, I’ll have at least a week, week and a half,” David answers. “Unless we get stuck with one of those really lame Bowl games that they play the day after Christmas, in which case I’d have to leave and come back.”

“I hope you don’t get stuck in a lame Bowl game, then,” Casey says. “Christmas is supposed to be cold and snowy, so it’s important to come to Lima and see some snow. I think there might be a law.”

David laughs. “Yeah, there probably should be. As long as it snows. Any white on the ground yet?”

“A little on the lawns, but nothing that stuck to the roads. They didn’t even have to send out the plows or anything. I think that means it’s either going to be a warm winter or it’s going to blizzard in two weeks.”

“Why rule either out?” David says. “Blizzard in November, shorts in January.”

“That sounds like the title of a Flannery O’Connor short story,” Casey says.

 

**Monday, November 11th, 2013: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

"There's a great opinion piece in the _Advocate_ this month," Josh says to Dave as they're walking across campus. "Or maybe it was in _Out_. Same publishers, anyway." He laughs. "About politicians and the moral responsibility of coming out."

"Huh." Dave mentally groans. Josh doesn't bring it up all the time, but he does often enough that Dave knows where the conversation is going. 

"It's so true, the trailblazers have got to feel such accomplishment. Really having an ability to make a difference. Like Barney Frank did, like Senator Baldwin is doing."

"They're well-established in their careers," Dave responds. "They aren't sports figures, either."

"Wouldn't it be nice not to worry about people finding out, though?" Josh asks. "Your team, the other teams."

"Most of my team knows, and if they don't, it's not because I'm making a particular effort to hide it," Dave says, glancing pointedly at Josh. 

"Just think about how great it'd feel, not just for yourself, but for kids across the country, you know?"

Dave rolls his eyes. "I feel fine about my decisions."

"But you aren't the only one who would be impacted," Josh says, almost whining, and while he just mentioned 'kids across the country', Dave is pretty sure that he means _he_ would be impacted. Josh would like to be publicly acknowledged, next to Dave as the significant other. He bets Josh wants to have a damn kiki with the other players’ girlfriends, like Mercedes—how he ended up with two of his college dormmates dating girls he knew from high school, Dave still isn't sure—and that girl Coop bribed into dating him. Dave knows that not everyone would be like that, though. He knows Casey would never pressure him, especially not when the reasoning isn't to benefit Dave.

"But I'm the main person who would be," Dave says firmly. "And I'm the one who _doesn't_ want to promote myself as a poster boy. If people find out, they find out, but I'm not writing a damn press release or granting an interview."

Josh shakes his head. "I'll send you a link to that op-ed later. Maybe it'll change your mind."

"Yeah, probably not," Dave says under his breath, but when Josh changes the subject, he goes along with it. If Dave doesn't want to come out 'for himself', why the hell does Josh think he'd come out for Josh? 

 

 **Saturday, November 16th, 2013: Dayton, Ohio — Casey**

Casey lets Taylor drive them down to the center because he gets way too excited over driving anywhere, and Casey’s been able to drive for ages now. The plan is to meet up with Kate and Austin, hang out for a while, and then send Kate and Taylor away to do whatever it is they do, while Casey does whatever it is he does, which is probably going to be pick up a random guy and fuck him in the bathroom. Though he’s actually been considering taking Austin up on his offer and going back to Austin’s place with him. They’re friends; Casey can be friendly.

“I see Kate!” Taylor announces as they walk towards the center, and he waves with a grin.

“Her hair is neon purple now,” Casey points out. “If you couldn’t see her, you might be colorblind.”

“Or just too far away,” Taylor retorts cheerfully. 

“You could see her from two miles away. She glows under blacklight,” Casey says.

“Hey Taylor!” Kate shouts. “Hey freak!”

“You’re a freak!” Casey calls back cheerfully. “You have neon purple hair.”

“If that’s your definition of freak, Casey, there’s a lot of freaks in this world,” Taylor says with a slow nod. 

“No, those are two completely separate statements of fact,” Casey clarifies. “She’s a freak. Also, she has neon purple hair.”

“It’s called ‘electric lilac’,” Kate says. “The tips are ‘aggressive amethyst’.”

“See, it’s not neon, Casey,” Taylor says exaggeratedly. “It’s electric.”

“Fine. Kate, you’re a freak and you have _electric_ purple hair.”

“Fair enough,” Kate says, then proceeds to make out with Taylor in the doorway leading into the center. Casey shoulders past them and rolls his eyes. There are cars and bathrooms and even couches for that kind of stuff; taking up the doorway is probably some kind of violation of fire codes or something.

Casey finds Austin by the cookies and they sit on one of the sofas and talk for a while until Taylor and Kate join them. Kate’s glitter lipgloss is smeared all over her face and Taylor’s mouth. Casey and Austin look at each other and both roll their eyes, then Austin says, “Kate, your face is covered in lipgloss.”

Kate wipes her mouth off on her sleeve, then uses the same sleeve to wipe off Taylor’s face. “It happens,” she says. “I don’t think Taylor gives much of a shit.”

“Nope,” Taylor agrees. “Not much of a shit.”

“It’s Lionel’s last day today,” Austin says. “They’re throwing him some kind of farewell thing, and then they’re throwing another party after he’s gone.”

Taylor snickers. “Good riddance to bad rubbish. The party after he’s gone should be awesome.”

“He’s such a dick,” Kate says, a little too loudly, loud enough that a few people turn and look at her. “A transphobic dick.” She’s a little twitchier than normal, yanking on her sleeves and fidgeting in place. Casey and Austin exchange looks, and Austin shrugs slightly.

“You weren’t at the meeting on Wednesday,” Austin says.

“Yeah. I know,” Kate says. “I had something else I had to do.”

“Jonathan was there. He said he asked his mom to let him come back because he missed us,” Casey says. “He brought muffins. The tiny kind. They were chocolate chip.”

“I had better things to do than muffins, okay?” Kate snaps. “Jesus. You’re not my mom.”

“I’ve met her mom,” Taylor offers. “You’re taller, paler, and your hair is definitely more red.”

“His hair’s more red than most people’s,” Kate says. “Well, most people who don’t dye it red, anyway.”

“I _am_ taller,” Casey agrees. He unzips his backpack and starts rifling through it for the bag of skittles he stuffed in there the other day. While he’s pawing through things, a book of matches falls out of the pocket and onto the floor. Kate picks it up and rotates it in her fingers, looking between it and Casey. 

“You dropped this,” she says, holding it out between two fingers. Casey quickly snatches it out of her hand and stuffs it back down into his backpack.

“It’s for just in case,” he says, a little too defensively. He cuts his eyes over to Austin, who’s watching Lionel’s goodbye lecture, and then glances over to Taylor, who seems to be making fun of Lionel. “Just if I need it, okay?”

Kate nods her head slowly. “Yeah. Yeah, I understand. Just in case.”

“Yes,” Casey says. “But I won’t use them.”

“Right,” Kate agrees. “Of course not. They’re for just in case.”

“He just used air quotes around trans again,” Taylor says, nudging Kate. “Add that to the running total!”

“When he hits twenty, I’m punching him in the dick,” Kate says absently, giving Casey a small, sad smile. She makes a little gesture that looks like pointing to herself and then to Casey, and Casey thinks she means ‘just between you and me’. He nods at her gratefully. He doesn’t plan to use the matches, he _hasn’t_ used the matches, but he’s not ready to give up the security blanket yet. Maybe soon. 

“After Lionel leaves, there’s supposed to be a cake,” Austin says. “Do you think it’ll be chocolate or vanilla?”

“Angel food,” Taylor answers. “We peeked into the kitchen.”

“Hallelujah,” Kate deadpans. 

 

 **Sunday, November 24th, 2013: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

The previous day's game had gone better than expected. Even if Coach doesn't admit it out loud, Dave knows they hadn't expected to win, and it was even more clear when Coach told them not to worry about their workouts on Sunday. Sure, they were heading towards the game with Georgia, but with Thanksgiving in the mix, Dave knew Monday's practice was going to be brutal. 

The unexpected completely free Sunday afternoon was a gift, though; Dave knew he _should_ fit in more studio time, but he hadn't planned on being able to work on his projects, so he didn't _have_ to squeeze it in. When Coop, Danny, and Ty all announce they're heading towards Lenox and then a movie at Phipps, Dave sends a quick message to Josh on his laptop, and fifteen minutes later, he lets Josh into the dorm and into his bedroom. 

There's something perfunctory about the way they undress and land on Dave's bed, the methodical way that they progress until within short order, there's a bottle of lube in Dave's hand. 

Despite their continued relationship, despite the fact that it feels pleasurable, sex is nothing like Dave would have imagined. It's not something that he imagined often, but he thought it would feel different. For all that people make such a big deal over it, he had expected to think it was a bright, shining thing, something so much greater and bigger than a blowjob or any other encounter, but it all falls short of that expectation. If Dave had to choose, he'd rather a blowjob, really – but then he thinks that's somewhat selfish. Probably most people would prefer to be the recipient who isn't having to do any work at all. 

Josh is muttering something, though Dave can't understand him, and Dave stops trying to understand him after a few more seconds, focusing on his sense of touch, but he can admit to himself that his mind is wandering. He closes his eyes, and Dave doesn't let himself fully admit what he's doing. He will acknowledge he's not picturing Josh underneath him, that his mind is imagining the feel of different skin underneath his fingers, but he can't let himself fully picture it, can't let himself think the name, until he comes, hard, and he can hear his voice echoing in his bedroom. 

"Casey."

There's silence, utter silence, for at least thirty seconds, before Josh speaks. "Dave, did you—?"

"Hmm." Dave runs his tongue over his lower lip. Thinking about someone else, calling out someone else's name – all apparently acceptable behavior when he's been at the Osprey those two times, and possibly it would have been okay with Seth or Jared, but Dave is pretty sure that it's _not_ okay for the relationship that he and Josh seemingly have. 

"I don't think that was my name."

Dave should apologize; he should tell Josh that he's sorry Josh doesn't inspire him to stay mentally present, when someone else provides more than enough to think about. He should apologize, perhaps even beg for forgiveness. Maybe he should take Josh out for dinner; Ty had said just a week ago that the Engine 11 Firehouse had some really great spicy food. Dave can't remember if Josh even likes spicy food, though, now that he's thinking about it, and that probably says far more than anything else. What comes out of his mouth isn't an apology.

"You should go," Dave says finally. "I think we both know this is over."

Josh draws in a breath, and Dave isn't sure if Josh is gearing up to yell or cry. He waits, and the answer ends up being none of the above. 

"I'll just see myself out," Josh says too quietly, sitting up and pulling on his clothes. Dave nods silently, wondering if Josh will explode once he's dressed, or if he really will see himself out. Josh doesn't say anything else, though, just pulls on his jacket and then leaves the room, pulling Dave's door up behind him. Dave listens to the sound of the dorm door close a few moments later, and Dave drops his head back onto his pillow with a loud sigh. 

"Well," he says to the empty room. "That was interesting." He nods slowly to himself. "I think there's a new rule. No more dating. Not here, not now."

 

**Wednesday, November 27th, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

Casey’s phone rings with while he’s sitting in the kitchen drinking his coffee. “Hi, Miles!”

“Hey, Cherry!” Miles says. “How’s your morning going?”

“I’m drinking coffee. Did you make it in okay?” Casey takes a sip of his coffee.

“Yeah, got in real late last night, didn’t figure it was worth the call,” Miles says. “So what are you up to today?”

“No real plans. Aunt Shannon and Uncle Monty are cooking later, and I’m not allowed in the kitchen when that happens because I try to clean up behind them as they go and it makes Aunt Shannon agitated.”

Miles laughs. “Yeah, I can totally see you doing that, too, walking around with a sponge wiping up every little splash, freaking out when flour gets all over stuff.”

“It’s not funny!” Casey protests. “And it’s a rag, not a sponge.” The doorbell rings, and Casey waits to see if Shannon and Monty will answer it, but he doesn’t hear them walking out of the living room, so he tells Miles, “Hang on, I’ve got to answer the door. I’ll be right back.”

“Alright, Cherry,” Miles says, and then Casey sets down the phone and walks to the front door. When he opens it, there’s Miles, standing on the front stoop with his phone still up to his ear and a big grin on his face. “Hey, Cherry.”

“Miles!” Casey says—well, squeals, if he’s being honest—and he flings his arms around Miles’ neck. Miles wraps his arms around Casey and laughs as he lifts him slightly off the ground, squeezing him tightly.

“That’s what I call a welcome!” Miles says as he sets Casey back down on his feet. “You figure I can hang up this phone now?”

Casey laughs, and Miles puts his phone into his coat pocket as Casey takes him by the arm and pulls him into the house. “Come have some coffee with me! It’s still so early!”

“Thought I’d see if I could get the jump on you today,” Miles says. “And now I know you don’t have any other plans, so…”

Shannon puts her head around the corner. “Hey, kid,” she says to Miles. “Clemson treating you pretty well?”

Miles’ grin fades a little before it returns to its original brightness. “Let me get back to you on that this same time next year, alright?”

“Yeah, I bet! Time to get back on the field, right?” Shannon says, nodding, then disappears down the hall.

“Something like that,” Miles says, more to himself than in actual response to Shannon. He turns back to Casey as they continue towards the kitchen. “So anyway, we’ll have that cup of coffee, then I figure I’ll kidnap you for the day. Sound like a plan?”

“I keep getting kidnapped,” Casey says, shaking his head sadly. “I don’t know what it is about me that makes people want to kidnap me.”

“You’re just so kidnappable,” Miles says. He sits down at the kitchen table and looks like he’s thinking the matter over carefully. “Cute, kind of compact, probably wouldn’t kick and scream too much.”

“ _Miles_ ,” Casey groans, while he pours Miles some coffee and adds cream until it’s barely even coffee colored anymore. “I’m not those things.”

“Yeah you are,” Miles insists. Casey rolls his eyes and hands Miles the mug of coffee. “Thanks, Cherry.” He takes a sip of his coffee and sighs happily. “You’re the only one ever makes it right, you know.”

“If you actually drank coffee instead of ever-so-slightly coffee-ish milk,” Casey says, and Miles makes a face at him.

“Don’t judge my coffee. I know how much sugar you put in yours.”

“Still counts as coffee, though,” Casey insists.

“Yeah, yeah. So says you, coffeemaster,” Miles grumbles, though it’s not a particularly effective grumble due to the smile. “The flower shop and the insurance agency are both open today,” he says, like he’s just putting that information out there for the sake of Casey’s curiosity.

“Alicia?”

“Off with Foots all day. They were seeing a movie or two, and then Alicia had some sort of project she was getting Foots to help her with.” Miles’ smile widens. “They dropped me off here, so if we’re going anywhere, you’re driving, which I guess means it’s more like you kidnapping me.”

“Aunt Shannon, Uncle Monty, I’m going out with Miles for a while!” Casey calls into the living room.

“Check in if you’ll be late!” Monty calls back.

“Okay!” Casey puts his and Miles’ mugs into the sink, pulls on his coat, and grabs his keys off the key holder as he follows Miles out the door to the Lemon. They buckle up and Casey backs out of the driveway. “So, your house?”

“Unless you’ve got an objection to that,” Miles says. “I’m at your mercy.” Casey makes a face at Miles that involves scrunching up one eye and sticking out his tongue, and Miles laughs at him.

“Too bad for you, then. I’m merciless.”

“Yeah, Cherry the Merciless. That’s you.”

“Yes! That’s me!”

Miles spends the drive back to his house telling Casey stories about some of the pranks the freshmen players have played on each other and about parties he’s been to, and not saying much of anything about friends he’s made, how football is going, or how he likes Clemson, which really tells Casey all he needs to know. As they’re pulling into Miles’ driveway, Miles asks, “So, you seeing anyone?”

Casey shakes his head. “No.”

“You and Shep still haven’t—"

Casey cuts him off with a quick, “Nope.” He grimaces and adds, with more than a little vitriol, “ _That Josh_.”

“Still?” Miles huffs an irritated breath. “Thought he’d have been done with that by now.”

Casey shrugs. “Guess not.” They get out of the car and Miles takes Casey by the wrist, pulling him along to the front door and inside the apparently empty house.

“So, no boyfriend, then, is what you’re saying?” Miles asks over his shoulder, raising one eyebrow.

“Nope.”

“Oh, thank god,” Miles says, turning to face Casey and pulling him into a kiss. Casey lets himself be pulled, melting into the comfortable familiarity of Miles’ touch.

When Miles breaks the kiss, Casey asks, “Upstairs?” and Miles smiles even wider.

“I like how you think, Cherry.”

 

**Thursday, November 28th, 2013: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Dave picks up his plate of pie slices that Ty’s mother gave him, tilting it towards the camera. “See?” he says. “Pie for Skyping.”

Casey scrunches up his face and squints, leaning towards the screen like it might give him a better look at the pie. “Three, no, _four_ kinds of pie? That’s so many kinds of pie!”

“How many kinds do you have?” Dave asks, setting his plate down and picking up his fork. “Not four?”

“No, just this one,” Casey says, raising his plate. There’s actually more whipped cream on the plate than there is pumpkin pie. “But look, I have fancy coffee, too!” He holds up a mug, also topped with whipped cream.

“That’s a lot of whipped cream, Case,” Dave laughs, picking up a forkful of the pecan pie first. “But that’s pumpkin pie. You want to guess what all the ones I have are?”

Casey sticks his finger in the whipped cream and then into his mouth with a thoughtful look on his face. “Well,” he finally says, “that one looks like pumpkin, too. And the one next to it is… pecan, maybe?” His eyes slide to the side and he looks momentarily startled, then wrinkles his nose. 

Dave grins. “Yeah, that’s half of ’em. Want to figure out the other two?”

“That one looks like fruit. Is it fruit? Oh, I think it’s apple! Is it?” Casey glances slightly to the side again, and his eyebrows kind of waggle. 

“It is,” Dave confirms. “It definitely is apple. Try to guess this last one, though.”

“Um. Is it cheesecake shaped like pie?” He leans closer to the screen and squints again. “It looks weird.”

“It’s very southern, apparently,” Dave says. “Something called [chess pie](http://ravingliberal.tumblr.com/post/31150885850/chess-pie-recipe). But there’s no checkerboard pattern, which is what I was expecting.”

Casey appears to be quickly typing something, which he follows with a confused tilt of his head. “It has buttermilk and… cornmeal? That sounds like a very, very weird pie, David. I’m not sure I would trust that pie if I were you. Proceed with caution.” He straightens his head and then makes an exaggerated frown, looking slightly to the side again. “I look _so_ weird,” he mutters.

Dave chuckles for a moment, finally realizing that Casey keeps looking at the smaller image of himself in the corner. “I had a bite of Ty’s before I headed back,” Dave assures Casey. “It’s good. I still don’t know why it’s called chess pie, though.”

“Sources are unclear,” Casey says, still kind of making a face. He sticks his finger in the whipped cream again, then in his mouth. “So, we’ve got the whole day blocked off for football games on Saturday. Aunt Shannon even bought pop, because it’s very serious football watching.”

“Yeah, it’s important business,” Dave agrees, nodding. “How many games are you watching?”

“One,” Casey says, too casually.

Dave squints a little. “You just said ‘games’ a minute ago.”

“Aunt Shannon’s watching a bunch of games. I’m just watching one.” The corner of Casey’s mouth twitches, but he manages to keep his face mostly straight. 

“Uh-huh,” Dave says, fighting the urge to smile. “Guess that Auburn/Alabama game’ll have you on the edge of your seat.”

“Oh yes. I’ll be all, go, um… whatever their mascots are!” Casey grins. “No, really it’s your game. I’m just watching yours.”

“Which, realistically, we will lose,” Dave admits. “But we like to think we have a chance.”

“Of course you do! I think you’ll win,” Casey says, nodding his head confidently… and then wrinkling his nose up at himself again. “So weird looking.”

Dave grins. “Are you going to eat any of the pie, Case, or just the whipped cream?”

In response, Casey drags his finger through the whipped cream and puts his finger a little further into his mouth than strictly necessary. He leaves it in his mouth a little longer than necessary, too, and pulls it out with a pop. Casey looks a little saucy, and Dave shakes his head. 

“You’re a brat, Case,” Dave says affectionately. 

Casey laughs, covering the lower half of his face with his hands. “Maybe!” he says. “Maybe I’m a brat.”

 

**Friday, November 29th, 2013: Atlanta, Georgia — Ty**

Ty isn't totally sure where Coop and Danny disappeared to – he hasn't actually seen them all day, and he's starting to wonder if they're Black Friday shopping. He and Special K are hunched over their laptops, the television on ESPN, though the volume is low. The knock at the door startles both of them, but it's Special K who jumps up first. Ty figures that means Special K's work is even more boring than Ty's. 

"Josh." Special K doesn't sound particularly happy to see him. "What are you doing here?"

Well, that's interesting, to Ty's way of thinking. He'd noticed Josh hadn't been around for the last few days, but he'd chalked it up to the holidays. 

"Listen, I know what you said on Sunday," Josh says, and Ty wrinkles his nose. There's no need for whining. Any idiot should have known that Special K is just biding his time. "But I think we should reconsider that decision."

"Really?" Special K sounds like he can't decide whether to be amused or annoyed. "And exactly why do you get to make this decision unilaterally? Are you going to start calling media outlets next, if I give in on this? Or is the media if I _don't_ give in?"

Ty winces and stops typing, hoping Special K hasn't forgotten that Ty's there. He doesn't really care if Josh realizes or not. 

"Hey. I wouldn't—" Josh cuts himself off. "You're right, it's not a unilateral decision, but I just thought that I would mention that I'm not averse to the idea."

"Duly noted. I am." There's the sound of the door opening again, and Ty can almost picture the expression that's probably on Special K's face. "Look, you need to just go. This is embarrassing. For you. Not me."

"Fuck you," Josh snarls, but Ty hears footsteps before the door closes, and he hurriedly puts his earbuds back in, turning his music back on. Special K walks back in, picks up his laptop, and starts working again without comment. 

Ty minimizes the window he's working in and calls up Facebook instead. After Casey visited, Ty had added him on Facebook, though he doesn't seem to use it much. Still, Ty calls up messages and sends a quick one to Casey. 

_Special K ended things with Josh on Sunday it seems. :)_

 

**Saturday, November 30th, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

Shannon went over the full game schedule for the day before turning on the television, but as far as Casey’s concerned, only one game really matters that much. There’s a wide assortment of snack food placed around the living room, but Casey ignores most of it in favor of his Code Red Mountain Dew and an entire pan of Rice Krispies treats, which he sets in his lap and eats straight out of the pan while he watches the game. 

Tech is losing 7 to 28 at the half, which might be why Shannon sounds so suspicious when she asks Casey, “Did you change horses, Casey?”

“Hmm?” Casey asks, glancing away from the screen to look at her. “Horses?”

“Look awfully happy considering the score, is all,” Shannon says.

Casey shrugs, but he doesn’t tone down his grin, which he’s pretty sure he’s had since yesterday, when he got that message from Ty on Facebook. “They didn’t think they were going to win, anyway,” he says. “Oh, look! There’s David!”

“Uh oh,” Monty says quietly. “I know that expression.”

Shannon turns to Monty and grins a little. “You think so?”

“Look at him. I’m not a gambling man by any stretch, but I’d place money on a certain someone whose name starts with ‘That’ no longer being in the picture,” Monty says. “Wouldn’t you agree, Shannon?”

“Dumped him!” Casey says, maybe a little too jubilantly. “He dumped _That Josh_! Ty told me.”

“Ahh.” Shannon nods at Monty, looking a little smug. 

“ _That Josh_ ,” Casey repeats, injecting as much disgust as possible into his tone. “He didn’t look at David the right way. I didn’t trust him, not even a little. Also, he had those _teeth_.”

“So you’ve mentioned,” Monty says, sounding amused. “Several times.”

“Well, it’s true,” Casey says, shrugging. “But now he’s gone, and next year, _I’ll_ be at this game. If they put the camera on the stands, I’ll wave to you.”

“We’ll be on the lookout, then,” Shannon agrees, sounding amused. 

“Oh, there’s David again!” He frowns. “I hope he’s eating enough. He looked so skinny on Skype on Thursday. It’s good he had four slices of pie.”

“Skinny?” Shannon repeats skeptically. 

“I’m sure he’s fine, Casey,” Monty reassures him. “Oh, look, Casey. See? He just knocked that boy over.”

“That’s right!” Casey whoops. “Put him on his ass, David!”

Shannon exchanges a look with Monty, then looks at Casey, almost perplexed. “Casey? You feeling okay?”

“Aunt Shannon,” Casey says, with a sigh of exasperation. “Football is _serious business_!”

“Won’t get an argument from me,” Shannon concedes, picking up the platter of wings.

 

**Monday, December 2nd, 2013: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Practice is brutal, but Dave expected that; Wednesday’s will probably be long and brutal, too. He grabs a shower first thing and then heads to his locker, absently picking up his phone as he grabs his jeans. There are three texts waiting, though, so he pauses to check them. 

All three are from Casey, and the first one is a picture, but Dave can’t tell what it is. Apparently Casey couldn’t either, because the second one says _oh that looks like nothing hang on_.

The third one is another picture, this one much more clear, and Casey’s thumb is doing a thumbs-up to the side. Dave enlarges the picture to read the text on a computer screen, and then grins. 

“Why’re you so happy?” Ty demands. “That practice was awful!”

“You win the lottery or something?” Coop asks. 

“That’s not exactly likely,” Danny says. “The odds of winning the lottery, at least any significant prize, are really small. So that’s probably not it.”

“Well, he looks like he won _something_ ,” Coop argues. “Maybe it was a radio call-in contest or something!”

“Maybe he won tickets to the Adam Lambert concert, then,” Danny suggests. “That’s statistically much more likely, and he’s happy about it.”

“Seriously, Danny?” Coop snorts. 

“Don’t buy into stereotypes,” Ty chides Danny. 

“Uh.” Dave scratches the back of his head. “I didn’t win any tickets or anything.”

“Oh, good, then Brittany and I can still get ’em for you for Christmas,” Danny says, looking relieved. “Forget I told you that, though.”

“Sure,” Dave agrees. “No, just got some good news.” He decides to see what new ideas they come up with after that additional information.

“Was it about Jesus?” Coop asks. “’Cause don’t listen to that Jehovah’s Witness crap, Special K. They’re worse than the Mormons. No holidays at all.”

“I think they talk about the good _word_ ,” Ty says, squinting, “but everyone knows that’s just ‘to hell with Georgia’.”

“So what kind of news was it, Special K?” Danny asks.

“Casey’s officially in,” Dave says nonchalantly, turning into his locker so he can grin and listen to their responses. 

“Aw’right!” Ty says. “I’ll have to send him a T-shirt.”

“That’s awesome,” Coop says. “No wonder you were grinning like that.”

“Took ’em long enough. We should go eat dinner to celebrate.” Danny laughs. “’Course we were gonna do that anyway.”

Dave turns back around, shaking his head. “We could get extra dessert?”

“Nah, I got a better idea,” Ty says. “Let’s go get some pizza! Rocky Mountain sounds good, doesn’t it?”

 

**Monday, December 2nd, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

Casey’s phone hasn’t even finished a full ring before he answers it and says, with exaggerated nonchalance, “Hello?”

“Hi, Case,” David says with a laugh. “Important day?”

“Well, it _is_ a Monday, and Monday is the start of another busy week,” Casey says, suppressing laughter. 

“And in the busy holiday season, no less,” David agrees. “You just started the celebrating early.”

“Celebrating? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Casey says, but his composure breaks and he starts to laugh. “I got in.”

“I saw that!” David laughs. “We went and had celebratory pizza on your behalf.”

“And you didn’t even text me any? Now my feelings are hurt!”

“As soon as technology lets us attach smells, then I would,” David says. “So you’d be able to smell what you’re missing out on.”

“But instead you have to take me there for real. For real when I’m _in Atlanta_ , because I _got in_!” Casey says. 

David laughs again. “Exactly.”

“Oh! I’ll have a roommate! What if I don’t like my roommate?”

“Ask for a new one?” David suggests. “Or spend all your time somewhere else, except for sleeping and showers and shit? I know a couple of people that do that.”

“But _I_ don’t know people,” Casey says, then he starts to laugh again. “Except for you. I know you. I’ll just sit in your dorm all the time and watch your giant television. Wouldn’t that be terrible?”

“You might want to go to class?” David suggests.

“I’ll go to _all_ my classes. I’ll do all my homework! I’ll work very hard,” Casey insists. “Because _I got in_!”

“Of course you did. And you aren’t stupid enough to do architecture, so you’ll have more fun,” David says. 

“Oh! Now I have to decide exactly what I’m going to do!” Casey exclaims. “I have to decide what I’m going to do for the rest of my life! That’s… that’s a _lot_ of pressure!”

“You’ll figure it out,” David assures him. “And you don’t have to figure it out tonight at least.”

“That’s good,” Casey says. “It’s also good I don’t have to apply anywhere else now. Aunt Shannon said if I didn’t hear anything by Christmas, I had to send in the other stuff, but I didn’t _want_ to go to those places.”

“Yeah, that’s handy, too,” David agrees. “But that _was_ smart of Coach. Just in case.”

“No,” Casey says. “I wasn’t going to Missouri or anywhere else. I just wasn’t.”

“What’s even in Missouri?”

“Some school I’m not going to, because just in case is _stupid_ ,” Casey says, and as he says it, it sort of resonates, almost echoes. Just in case is stupid. 

“I guess St. Louis is there.” David sounds puzzled. “And that place with all the country singers and their shows.”

“I think there’s a river. A river and some stupid just in case school that I didn’t apply to, and I’m not going to,” Casey insists. “Because I got in to Georgia Tech, and I’m only going where— well, I’m only going there, so. So _there_.”

David chuckles. “You’re still a brat.”

“It’s entirely possible,” Casey concedes. “But I’m a brat going to Georgia Tech.”

 

**Saturday, December 7th, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Rick**

Taylor always has the best ideas, even when he’s worried about something, like he seems to be worried about something the last couple of days. Rick passes the joint to Alicia and says, “Taylor, I think you’re worried about something.”

Taylor shrugs. “A little bit, I guess. It’s probably nothing. I mean, Kate’s a big girl. She can take care of herself and all that.”

“No she can’t, not really,” Casey says, shaking his head. “If she could take care of herself, she wouldn’t be at Shush to begin with. That’s where you get sent when you can’t take care of yourself.”

“I thought you went there so you could take care of yourself, or something,” Taylor says, taking the joint from Alicia. 

“No, that’s why I go to a psychiatrist. I go to Shush ’cause I was really _bad_ at taking care of myself,” Casey says. “Also, they have punch sometimes.”

“Punch is awesome. I like the kind that’s got the sherbet in it,” Rick says. “You can make it any color.”

“Shh,” Alicia giggles. “Don’t tell my ma. She’ll think you’d rather have punch than juice.”

“I _would_ rather have punch than juice,” Taylor offers, handing the joint to Casey. “Wouldn’t most people?”

“I’d rather have juice than get punched,” Rick says. “And that’s god’s honest truth.”

“I miss that juice sometimes,” Casey says, sort of sadly. “I used to drink so much of that juice.”

“I can get Ma to make you a thermos and bring it to school every morning,” Alicia offers. “She’d like that.”

“That’s really cool, Alicia. Your whole family is _so cool_ ,” Casey says, then he starts to giggle. “Do you think she’d send that reddish-orangish kind?”

Alicia grins. “Sure! I’ll tell her tomorrow.”

“I miss Miles,” Casey sighs. “Miles always made me drink juice.”

“I miss that cereal they used to have when I was little, with the ghost marshmallows. Y’all remember that?” Rick asks. “It made the milk a funny color and the marshmallows were shaped like ghosts.”

“I never had cereal with marshmallows,” Casey says. “We never had that.”

“They still sell it at Halloween,” Taylor says thoughtfully. “But we missed Halloween this year. For cereal, I mean.”

“Well, I’ll look for it next Halloween,” Rick says. 

“I miss Halloween,” Casey says. “I like the candy.”

“You always like the candy!” Alicia says.

“I _do_ like candy!” Casey agrees. “I like candy a lot. I like candy and… and I like _David_. And I’m going to Georgia to eat Georgia candy, and to live where David is.”

“Like pralines?” Rick asks.

“I don’t know what those are, but probably,” Casey says firmly.

“You can mail me some,” Alicia says. “Mail some to Taylor and me, stuck here all alone.”

“But I’m not gonna be real far away, Alicia, and I’ll come home on all the weekends,” Rick says. “And you can come watch me play football, and when the rest of the team says ‘who’s that gorgeous girl’, I’ll say, that’s my Alicia, and she’s smart and awesome, too.”

“Aww, you’re so sweet, Daniel,” Alicia says. “But Taylor and I still might get lonely during the week. We can eat Georgia candy to make ourselves feel better.”

“I’ll send you a big box!” Casey declares. “It’ll be full of Georgia candy. I’ll get David and his roommates to help me pick it out, and I’ll send it up here, and you can eat it. And it’ll be really good, because it’ll taste like Georgia.” He takes a big hit from the joint and hands it over to Rick before exhaling. “And Georgia is the awesomest, because it’s where David is.”

“You aren’t gonna ask the glee club to sing songs about Georgia for graduation, right?” Taylor says. “’Cause I don’t want to sing ‘Georgia on My Mind’, and that’s the only one I can think of.”

“I don’t ever ask anybody to sing anything,” Casey says, and that’s totally true. He never does, Rick’s pretty sure. 

“There’s one about a train,” Rick says. “But I think it’s leaving Georgia, not going there. Or maybe it’s leaving _to_ go there. I never can remember that. I guess it doesn’t matter, since it’s not a real train and nobody’s really on it.”

“We could put Casey on a train to Georgia next fall,” Taylor says. “If we can find a train station near Lima.”

“No, I think I have to take the Lemon, and cars aren’t allowed to ride on trains,” Casey says. “It’s the law.”

“They make some weird-ass laws,” Rick says. “I’ll never understand Ohio, I swear.”

 

**Monday, December 9th, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

Casey’s looking through his backpack for his flash drive, which somehow got unclipped from the binder he keeps it clipped to, when his hand finds the book of matches. He pulls it up from the backpack and looks at it. It’s a folded piece of green cardboard, with ‘Breadstix’ on it in gold letters, and it’s only short one match, even though he’s had it in the bottom of his backpack for just in case for months now.

He thinks about what he told David about Missouri, how ‘just in case’ is stupid. He looks at the matchbook he’s been keeping for just in case.

Just in case _is_ stupid.

Casey tosses the matchbook into the trashcan and keeps rifling through his backpack until he finds his flash drive. He plugs it into his laptop and opens up the information sheet for tomorrow’s PFLAG, clicking ‘print’ so he has a few originals to use to run copies in the morning. The rest of the day’s trash will go on top of the matchbook, and the next day, it will be taken to the curb with the rest of the trash, and that’s the end of ‘just in case’.

 

**Saturday, December 14th, 2013: Troy, Ohio — Taylor**

Taylor admits that he’s relieved they aren’t hosting the regional holiday party this year; his goal for senior year might be to go to the center enough to find another group to host next year as well. “Hey, great job, Peter!” Taylor says as soon as he can find Peter. “This is a great location.”

“Thanks. The Trojammers performed here once, and I got the contact information,” Peter says. “We got it pretty cheap, too. After what happened in Lima, nobody wants to piss off the PFLAG groups.”

“Alphabet power!” Taylor agrees. “Oh, and hey. Congrats on your sectionals win. Guess we’ll see you in March.”

“I guess so,” Peter says. “I hope you don’t feel too bad about ending that winning streak of McKinley’s.”

“Oh, I was just going to say that at least you’ll be able to console yourself that you lost to the year’s national champs,” Taylor retorts with a grin. 

“Oooh, bring it, Lima. Bring it,” Peter says, returning the grin. “We’ll just have to activate our secret glee spy network. I hear you guys used to have one of those.”

“We have something better than that,” Taylor says. “We have.” He pauses dramatically, but really so he can gather his thoughts. “A show choir consultant!” Actually, they were told to beware of show choir consultants, and to veto any attempt by Schue to bring one in. 

Peter looks impressed. “It’s not Vincent Addermeyer is it? I’ve heard he’s _vicious_.”

“Like we’d waste the money on him. His salary’s inflated,” Taylor says, hoping that what he’s saying makes sense, because he has no idea who Addermeyer is. It sounds like a type of cheese.

“Is it Shelby Corcoran?” Peter asks. “You know she used to coach Vocal Adrenaline during its heyday. I heard she moved to Lima.”

Taylor shrugs mysteriously. Jenni had recommended Ms. Corcoran as a vocal instructor to Samantha, and a few other members of New Directions had started taking lessons from her as well. If they _did_ have a show choir consultant, she’d probably be a good choice. “You’ll have to wait and see,” he finally says. 

Peter laughs nervously. “Well, enjoy the party at least. Tell Casey I took his advice on the papergoods. Definitely better to get them some place other than Walmart.”

“I’ll tell him after the break,” Taylor agrees. “He’s preoccupied right now.”

“Oh? School?” Peter asks. 

Taylor laughs. “Nah, Karofsky’s coming into town on Monday for two weeks or something like that.”

“Who’s Karofsky?” Peter asks, looking confused, then a look of understanding dawns on his face. “Wait. Is that the mystery guy? The one he’s been pining away over for the last year and a half?”

“Got it in one,” Taylor agrees. “And they’re both single, from what I hear, so.” He shrugs. “Good thing the party was today.”

“Wow. Well, I hope it works out for him… and that somebody tells me _all the details_ after the holidays!” Peter says. “Oops, I see Ryan over there looking frantic. I’ll have to hear more later.”

“Yeah, yeah. Later, dude,” Taylor says, nodding. He looks around the room, trying to estimate how many people are actually there. There’s a good turnout, even more than the year before, and Taylor begins to wonder if they should just convince the center to host it the next year. 

“Hey, Rick,” Taylor calls. “Everybody seems to have made it!”

“That’s great!” Rick calls back. “I guess it’s true that Soups do love to congregate.”

 

**Monday, December 16th, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

Casey gets the text while he’s in his dual enrollment math class. All it says is _made it to lima :)_ , and Casey spends the remaining forty-five minutes of class trying not to flail impatiently because David is in Lima. David is in _Lima_ , where Casey is!

When that class is over, Casey decides he really doesn’t have to go to his second class, and he walks straight to the parking lot, gets in the Lemon, and drives to David’s house. He rings the doorbell, trying not to bounce in place too much.

David opens the door just a few seconds later, grinning. “Hey, Case.”

“David! Hi!” Casey says, and he does, in fact, bounce in place. “You’re here!”

“Yep, for almost two full weeks,” David agrees, stepping back so Casey can walk inside.

“I know! That feels like forever, almost,” Casey says. He closes the door behind himself. Everything in the house, at least the parts Casey can see, looks exactly the same as it did when he lived there. “How, um. Was the flight?”

“Crowded,” David says with a grimace. “I ended up next to this guy who just wanted to talk. His girlfriend, his ex-wife, his best friend, everyone he ever met, he wanted to tell me about them.”

“Oh no! The times I flew, nobody even tried to talk to me,” Casey says. “I think you have terrible luck with airplanes, David.”

“Yeah, I kind of think you’re right,” David says wryly, shrugging and leading the way towards the kitchen. “I think Dad went a little crazy at the Costco. Clif bar?”

Casey almost frowns, but doesn’t. “No, I’m alright. I ate lunch.”

“Missing out,” David jokes, grabbing a bag of chips for himself and walking towards the sofa. 

“Probably not. Aunt Shannon buys them at Costco, too, so I eat them every day I swim,” Casey says. He follows David to the sofa and sits at the opposite end, not all the way up against the arm, but with some space between himself and David. “Which is most days, actually.”

“Yeah, then probably not,” David agrees. “No swim today?”

“No anything today. I cleared my calendar,” Casey says, smiling. 

“As long as they’re not going to come haul you off to a swim practice,” David jokes. 

“If they come looking, I’ll hide,” Casey says. “Or we’ll be somewhere else when they come looking. I bet you haven’t had a really good milkshake in ages.”

“Well, I do live across the interstate from the Varsity,” David says, “but a milkshake’s good, yeah.”

“And, um. There’s probably some kind of Lima culture you’ve been missing. If you think of anything, let me know. It’s too cold for the parks.”

“Lima culture, yeah,” David shakes his head. “Probably not. Guess I ought to take a drive around the town or something while I’m here.”

“We could drive through downtown, if you want. If you’d rather, we could go to Pat’s instead,” Casey offers. “Or milkshakes today, Pat’s, um. Tomorrow or the next day or something.” He smiles at David nervously. Now that David’s actually in Lima, and there’s no more _That Josh_ , and Casey’s definitely going to Georgia Tech, he’s kind of at a loss as to what he’s supposed to do now.

“It might say something about Lima that all we can come up with is different places to get snacks,” David says with a laugh. 

“I’d take you to the pool, but if a roving swimming lesson is looking for me, that’s the first place they might look.” Casey shrugs. “We could just drive around a little and see what comes up?”

“Couldn’t hurt,” David agrees. 

“You should bring your chips,” Casey says. “I’m not sure you’re eating enough.”

“Huh?” David looks bewildered. “Not eating enough?”

“You look skinny. I think they don’t feed you enough in Atlanta,” Casey says. 

David glances at Casey, a strange expression on his face. “Skinny? Case, do you need to visit the eye doctor?”

“We’ll start with milkshakes, anyway,” Casey says. “It’s good you’re having a two week break from everything. I… well, it’s good you’ve having a break.” Ever since David mentioned sleeping in the studio, Casey’s been even more concerned about the state of things down in Atlanta. Hopefully David will be able to get some decent rest while he’s in Lima, at least.

“Right. Milkshakes.” David sounds a little mystified. “But yeah, a break – it’s nice to have a break.”

Casey takes David’s hand and squeezes it. “It’s nice that you’re here, too.”

David smiles, finally looking less confused. “Were you offering your services in pursuit of those milkshakes?”

“I’m an expert milkshake pursuer. Didn’t you know?” Casey asks, smiling back at David. “I have a milkshake pursuit vehicle and everything. You should see it. It’s very fast.” He starts to pull David in the direction of the door. “It looks just like the Lemon, but don’t be fooled. It’s a milkshake pursuit vehicle. Certified, even.”

David laughs as they walk out to the Lemon. “Good to know. Was the certification process difficult?”

“I’m not allowed to discuss it,” Casey says. “The first rule of milkshake pursuit is you don’t talk about milkshake pursuit. The second rule is no fake sugar.” He sits down in the driver’s seat and leans across the car to unlock the passenger door and pull the handle to pop the door. When David sits down, Casey adds, “and the third rule is pie.”

“No fake sugar, I can get behind that rule,” David agrees, buckling his seatbelt. 

“Just for the record,” Casey says, as he backs out of the driveway, “being a certified milkshake pursuer doesn’t make me exempt from speeding tickets.”

“That’s kind of a pity,” David says, shaking his head slowly, as if that’s one of life’s greatest disappointments. “I guess we’ll have to pursue milkshakes at a legal speed.”

“Or be prepared to outrun the law. I like the idea of outrunning the law. It sounds exciting!” 

“Until they inevitably catch us, though. I don’t know about you, but I’ve always heard the mug shots are really unflattering.”

“Probably look better than my yearbook picture,” Casey says, more to himself than to David. He doesn’t actually speed, though, especially since the Kewpee isn’t even that far away. 

“Do you think they use a special technique on mug shots?” David muses. “Maybe they make criminals stay awake for awhile first, or they use a cop-only filter.”

“That’s probably it,” Casey says. He nods his head a few times, then adds, “But I bet we could get it at one of those websites. You know, the ones for conspiracy theorists!” They get out of the Lemon and walk towards the building, where Casey holds the door open for David. 

David grins and inhales deeply as he walks in. “Think it’s overkill to get a milkshake _and_ root beer?”

“I won’t tell if you won’t,” Casey promises. “Anyway, who would I even tell? I don’t think there’s a rule against it or anything, and even if there is, that’s a dumb rule.”

“You never know,” David says, shrugging. “There could be a secret Drinks Police or something.”

“I’ll just flash my milkshake pursuit certificate. That will make them leave us alone. Also, I’m getting chocolate and peach.”

David laughs for a second as they approach the counter. “Bet you can’t guess what flavor I’m getting.”

“Tomato-basil,” Casey guesses, straight-faced. “Or… blueberry peppermint.”

“Case,” Dave says seriously. “Those are so far past the wall, they’re not even off of it.”

“But they’d be very _exciting_ , David,” Casey insists. “Disgusting, but exciting. Just get your boring vanilla, though, if you aren’t prepared to live an adventuresome life. One of these days, you’ll realize how many milkshakes you missed out on.”

“Adventure is fine. I just get my kicks outside the food category.”

“Hmm.” Casey frowns. “Maybe we should just order milkshakes for now, then.”

David laughs again. “Maybe so.” He orders his vanilla milkshake, some root beer, and then a hamburger, too. Casey orders a chocolate-peach milkshake, then changes his mind and asks them to add some strawberry, too. David makes a face, then grins.

“Don’t judge! It’ll be awesome!” Casey says. “The strawberry gives it more color.” The strawberry does give it more color, but the color turns out to be sort of muddy pink. They sit with their milkshakes and Casey takes a sip, then makes a face and shudders. 

“Awesome?” David repeats skeptically, obviously trying not to smile. “That’s quite a face for ‘awesome’, Case.”

“Oh hush. It’s a failed experiment. I’ll learn from it,” Casey says, taking another sip of his milkshake. “Oh, that is… _bad_ , it’s just bad, David.”

David shrugs. “Shoulda gone with boring vanilla.” Then he grins. “You want a sip?”

“Um.” Casey makes a show of glancing around to see if anyone’s looking, then lowers his voice. “Yes, but shhh. Don’t tell anyone.”

David pushes his milkshake towards Casey, still grinning. “Lips are sealed,” he promises. “Too bad it’s not the Varsity, huh?”

“Oh! The orange things! Those are the best.” Casey takes a sip of the vanilla milkshake, which is actually pretty good. “Okay, this milkshake may be acceptable.”

“Glad it meets your approval,” David says, laughing. He shakes his head. “So weird, Case. It feels like nothing in Lima’s changed. I mean, people, sure, people change and all of that.” He lowers his voice conspiratorially. “I think my dad bought even uglier ties.”

Casey stifles a laugh. “I don’t think that’s possible. But… it’s Lima. Nothing ever changes, really. Even when it does, it doesn’t.” He shrugs and tries not to sound as pathetic as that statement probably sounded. “But, hey, it’s not forever.”

“Got a countdown going yet? How many days?” David asks, smiling.

Casey shrugs again, then shakes his head. “I can’t. If I did that, I’d never think about anything else. I just try to pretend more than one day is passing at a time.” He stabs his straw into his admittedly disgusting milkshake. “If I don’t actually look at the numbers, it totally works.”

“Ah, yeah,” David says, nodding. He nudges his milkshake back across the table. “Want some more?”

“Only because mine is so bad. Not because yours is good or anything,” Casey says, taking another sip. 

“Naturally,” David agrees, finishing off his hamburger. He eyes his root beer. “Think I should get some to go?”

“Definitely,” Casey says. “I give up on this milkshake. It’s the second worst flavor I ever came up with.”

“What was the worst?” David asks as they stand up. 

“Raspberry-Snickers-orange,” Casey says. “But that was mostly because of the peanuts. They were supposed to put in Milky Way.”

David grimaces slightly and orders his root beer to-go, then walks towards the door, taking Casey’s hand as they pass through it. “Want to just walk around?”

Casey holds David’s hand tightly. “I think that’s a great plan.” 

They walk down the sidewalk, and Casey swings their hands a little, trying to just enjoy holding onto David and to not think about five more months of being eight hours apart. They wander through the town square, looking at the Christmas decorations, and end up in front of the cafe next to ArtSpace, looking at the window painting.

“I never thought about Santa Claus being a coffee drinker,” Casey says, admiring the window art. 

David grins. “He has to have some way to stay awake while he’s criss-crossing the planet.”

 

 **Wednesday, December 18th, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Dave**

“Going to bed already?” Dave says, jokingly looking at the clock. “Getting old, Dad?”

Paul just laughs. “I have an eight am meeting in Cincinnati. I’ll be back early afternoon, though. Why don’t you see if Casey and the Desmonds want to meet for dinner tomorrow night?”

Dave nods. “That sounds good. ’Night, Dad.”

“Good night, David,” Paul says, waving his hand before moving from Dave’s doorway and going into his own room, the door shutting behind him. 

Dave pulls out his phone and presses Casey’s name, stretching out on his bed while he waits for the call to connect.

“Hi,” Casey says. “I just got out of the shower. You have psychic timing.”

“Oh, well, good,” Dave manages, and he is not thinking about Casey just out of the shower. At all. 

Maybe a little bit.

“I guess that means you’re de-coffee’d, then?”

“Well, I can’t smell myself, at least. So, probably?” Casey makes a loud sniffing noise. “Nope, definitely no coffee smell.”

Dave laughs. “That’s good. I was talking to someone in one of my classes who actually _buys_ coffee-smelling shampoo or whatever.”

“That would be redundant for me. I’d smell like double coffee and everyone would be so confused!”

“You’d get accused of wearing work home,” Dave agrees. “Probably not the best idea. Swim practice go well?”

“I didn’t sink,” Casey says. “Always a bonus.”

“They probably would frown on that.” Dave pauses. “I attempted to find Lima-specific gifts for Ty, Coop, and Danny.”

“And you failed, because nothing is Lima-specific, unless you get them, hmm. You could get them a flyer about basketball season,” Casey suggests. “Or memberships to the Y.”

“I was trying to find, I don’t know. A keychain or something? Maybe I need to actually go wander around downtown again, but I don’t remember seeing anything likely.” He grins to himself. “I could get ’em a Kewpee mug.”

“I think you can’t bring root beer on the plane, though. That’s too bad.”

“Too bad for them, yeah,” Dave says. “Maybe I’ll head towards the quarry and get ’em some authentic Ohio rock.”

“It has many uses. Paperweight, gardening. Um. Weaponry?” Casey says. “No, that’s all I can think of.”

“Further north than Danny’s been, anyway. Maybe further north than Coop, too, but I can’t remember. Ty’s been to Philly. Are we further north than Philly?”

“I’d have to consult my atlas. Which I don’t actually have, so it might take me a little while. I’ll just run out to the store and get an atlas, then I’ll call you right back, okay?”

Dave laughs along with Casey. “I didn’t know they still printed an atlas. Figured everyone was on Google maps by now.” 

“Probably, but an atlas seems like something to have. What if the power grid goes down and we have to navigate across the county in some kind of post-apocalyptic scenario, hmm?” Casey asks. “Bet you’d wish you had an atlas.”

“If the power grid goes down, I doubt I’ll make it out of downtown Atlanta,” Dave admits. 

“I’ll come get you. The Lemon can drive on the side of the highway, I bet. It’s smallish.”

“We could hole up inside the Varsity, maybe,” Dave suggests. “Milkshakes and burgers for awhile, that way.”

“I like your plan. I’ll spend the end of the world with you and the milkshakes!” Casey says, a little too happily. 

Dave chuckles for a moment, then takes a deep breath. “Case,” he says softly, then stops.

“David?” 

“Do you— I—" Dave stops again. “We’ve had some miscommunication and bad timing before, but.”

Casey sighs quietly. “Yes. We have. It’s true.”

“Is the timing still bad?” Dave asks, his voice still soft.

“Oh, David.” Casey sighs again, this time a little shaky. “You know I— I mean, I think you _have_ to know, I don’t know how you don’t— but David, it’s still over five months until I graduate.”

“I know,” Dave murmurs, waiting, because it sounds like Casey has more to say.

“I think it took me a year, last time,” Casey says. “Maybe longer, even. It took me that long just to be okay about letting you go. How am I supposed to manage it for five more months if we— I'd have to start all over at the beginning, and… and I just don’t know how to do that. I have five more months I have to get through.”

Dave nods, even though Casey can’t see him. “I know.” He stops and then grins a little. “So that’s a ‘yes’ on the timing still being bad, then?” he says lightly. 

Casey laughs faintly. “It’s a ‘yes’ on that, but David? It’s not a ‘no’, okay?”

“Okay,” Dave agrees. “I’ll keep that in mind.” And he will. It’s more like a ‘not right now’ or ‘not yet’, and the fact that they’re actually talking about it – well, if Lisa was the kind of therapist to give out stickers, Dave would probably get a whole roll in January.

 

**Monday, December 23rd, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

Casey goes through a drive-thru and picks up breakfast on the way over to David’s, because they have a long day of movie marathoning ahead of them that shouldn’t be interrupted by inconvenient things like hunger or cooking. Also, despite David’s protests and confusion, Casey is still sure that David isn’t eating enough in Atlanta, so he gets an extra order of hashbrowns. 

He knocks on the door at David’s house, and David opens the door just a few moments later. “Hey. Ready for today?”

Casey holds up the bag of fast food triumphantly. “I brought emergency rations!”

“Well, c’mon. We’ll start with _The Hobbit_ like we planned.”

“We’ll start with coffee,” Casey corrects him. “Then _The Hobbit_.”

“I figured that went without saying,” David says, closing the door and padding towards the kitchen. “Pot’s already brewed.”

“Then I’ll pour coffee, since I’m a trained professional, and you can get the movie ready, since you go to a tech school,” Casey says. 

David laughs and nods, heading towards the blu-ray player. “Sounds about right.”

Casey sets the bag of food on the coffee table and walks into the kitchen, pouring coffee for both of them, and bringing the mugs back into the living room. “I should have seen it in the theater, but… I just didn’t, I guess.” He sits on the sofa, in the spot where he used to sit, right next to David. 

“Yeah, same here,” David says, hashbrown in one hand and mug of coffee in the other. “Figured we’d order food in for the other meals.”

“Obviously. We’d starve if we didn’t, since we can’t leave the house until all the movies are over.” Casey gets another hashbrown from the bag and eats it, leaning slightly against David as the movie starts. “I can’t promise I won’t splash you with coffee if something scary happens.”

“Well, there shouldn’t be anything too bad until after the coffee’s cooler at least, right?” David says, grinning. 

“I hope not, but sometimes things just show up out of nowhere, David. You can’t predict these things!”

They manage to watch _The Hobbit_ without any coffee being spilled, then David puts on _The Fellowship of the Ring_ , and they watch that while Casey leans against David. By the time the movie’s over, David’s arm is around Casey, and he leaves it there until the delivery guy arrives with their pizza for lunch. After lunch, they watch _The Two Towers_ and _The Return of the King_ , then they order Chinese food for dinner.

“They’re still so good,” Casey says. “Now I feel ready for _The Desolation of Smaug_ on Thursday.”

David nods. “Yeah.” Then he frowns. “Well, we watched all of them. What now?”

“Hmm. The food won’t be here for a while,” Casey says, trying to think of something fun to do while they wait for Chinese food, and not coming up with any answers that don’t involve kissing, which probably isn’t the best plan at this juncture. “We could find something to watch on television?” he offers. 

“Probably some movies on,” Dave says with a small grin. Dave flips through the channels and stops on one. “This looks Christmassy.” He pauses. “Also British.”

“Well, I do watch a lot of British things, so that sounds good,” Casey says. He curls up against David again, just breathing him in and being happy to be there, watching the movie start. “ _Love Actually_. That sounds nice.”


	15. Spring Semester 2014

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another year, another spring, another Monday passes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warnings: References to self-harm and mental health issues**

**Saturday, January 4th, 2014: Lima, Ohio — Miles**

It’s about fifteen minutes before the end of Casey’s shift when Miles goes swaggering into the Starbucks. Casey’s back is to the front counter, his red ponytail even longer than it was back at Thanksgiving, and he’s obviously working on something that requires all of his attention because he doesn’t turn around when Miles leans on the counter.

“This the kind of service you get in Starbucks these days?” Miles says, and Casey jumps and spins around with a broad smile on his face.

“Miles!”

“Hey, Cherry!” Miles says, as Casey comes around the counter to give him a hug. Casey smells like coffee and peppermint, and he has a smudge of something, possibly chocolate, on his cheek. “You smell like a dessert.”

“I spilled a peppermint mocha all over myself when I got here,” Casey says. “I changed my apron, but my pants smell like mint.”

“Ouch. Hope you didn’t burn yourself too bad.”

“Define ‘too bad’.”

“Damn, Cherry,” Miles says, shaking his head as Casey lets go of him. “So, you’re off in fifteen or so, right?”

“Yes. Well, as long as John’s here on time, and he’s always here on time, so, yes,” Casey says, walking back behind the counter. “Usually I’d have somebody else here on a Saturday, but Maci got strep throat from seeing her little cousins over the break, so it’s just me today.” He turns back to what he was working on when Miles got there, which appears to be a blender with a stuck part. “That just goes to show you that children are potentially dangerous.”

“Yeah, I guess it does,” Miles says. “So, tell me about what’s going on. How was Christmas? How is everybody?”

“Good. Everybody’s good. Uncle Monty forgot about a batch of cookies because he was watching the _Doctor Who_ Christmas special and it caught on fire—the cookies, not _Doctor Who_ —but Aunt Shannon put it out with the fire extinguisher,” Casey says over his shoulder.

“Any damage to the kitchen?”

“No, and it was only about a quarter of the cookie dough, so once the smoke cleared out, we still had plenty of cookies.” He looks over at Miles. “Do you want coffee?”

“Nothing fancy, but a cup of something hot would certainly do me,” Miles says. Casey pours him a cup of coffee and waves his hand at Miles when he starts to pull out his wallet, so Miles shrugs and puts it back into his pocket. He walks over to the table with the sugar and cream, and starts pouring cream into his coffee. “And what about you? Up to anything new since last time we talked?”

“Hmm. Not really.”

“You have you a nice Christmas break with Shep?” Miles adds, and yeah, maybe it’s a little leading.

“It was good,” Casey says. “It was really good. We talked, and it was really good.”

“Oh, yeah? That’s good to hear.” And in a way, it is, because nobody but Karofsky’s ever going to make Casey happy in the the long run, and Miles wants Casey to be happy. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting a little to hear it, though.

“I think maybe… someday?” Casey says, shrugging slightly. “I don’t know when, but I feel like someday. The timing might actually be right someday.”

“That’s great, Cherry. I’m real happy for you,” Miles says, as happily as he can manage to sound. “So what do you say? We going to the center or catching a movie or what?”

“Did you see that ninja movie yet?” Casey asks, taking off his apron as John comes into the store.

“You know, I hadn’t gotten around to it yet,” Miles answers. “So I think we ought to remedy that.”

 

**Thursday, January 9th, 2014: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Dave escapes from the studio and heads towards the vending machines. It’s early in the semester, but if he can get the first project done ahead of the deadline, he knows well enough now that he’ll really appreciate the cushion around the beginning of April. He buys a Coke and then turns to the selection of candy bars, trying to decide between a Payday and a Snickers. 

His phone starts to ring just as he’s punching in the code for the Snickers, and he sticks his hand in the machine to grab the candy bar at the same time he answers the phone. “Hello?”

“Hey, Karofsky,” Hudson says. “Hudson.”

“Hey, man,” Dave says, straightening and leaning against a wall. “How’s it going?”

“Good, man, it’s going really good,” Hudson says. “I’m back in New York.”

“Oh, yeah, congratulations on the Rose Bowl,” Dave says. “Bet that was a lot of fun.”

“Thanks. It really was. Oh, and I met Utah.”

“Yeah?” Dave chuckles for a second. “Bet your brother never thought there’d be an actual Utah.”

“I feel bad for the guy. He seemed cool. I told him I was sorry about September, but you know how it is, man,” Hudson says, and Dave can almost hear him shrugging. “Nobody thought there’d really be a Utah.”

“Wonder if he actually is Mormon,” Dave muses. “My dormmates accused me of being a shunned Mormon when I first got down here. They got Mormons and Amish mixed up together somehow. But I wouldn’t want to be a Mormon, with everything.” Dave looks up and down the hall, even though there’s no one around.

“How do you mix up Mormons and Amish?” Hudson asks. “That’s kinda strange, dude. But yeah, I wouldn’t want to be a Mormon either, but like, for a bunch of reasons.”

“Yeah, ’cause then you might have to live in Utah,” Dave agrees. “Things cooled down though, on your end?”

“More or less. Still a whisper or two, but they haven’t got anything to back it up, so.” 

“Yeah, makes sense,” Dave says, though he’s not totally sure it does. Whatever Hudson was spotted doing, he either broke it off or learned to be a _lot_ more discreet. “Not so much stuff here, either. The guys on the team that already knew were pissed at the implication that they’d be assholes about it.”

“And the Badgers are just too classy to be assholes about some anonymous online rumor,” Hudson says. 

“That’s good.” Dave looks around again and sighs. “Don’t think Brown’s finding Clemson anywhere near so congenial. Probably more like LSU over there, if you know what I mean.”

Hudson snorts, but sounds sympathetic when he says, “Yeah, I don’t know what the hell he was thinking. Somebody like Brown at a school like Clemson? I don’t know how he’s making it day to day. To be honest, I keep half-expecting to see something happen to him like what happened to Baptiste.”

“Yeah, I hear you. He drove down here for a night back in October. Didn’t go into detail, just said it was bad, but it’s not hard to figure out what that means.” Dave laughs. “Need to get an anonymous support group going for us and Utah, huh?”

“What would you even call something like that?” Hudson asks. “Trying to think of names here, but it’s all ‘something-something Balls’, and probably that wouldn’t work.”

Dave muffles his laugh in his sleeve before he manages to respond. “Yeah, probably not,” he agrees.

“But it’s all pretty good there?” Hudson asks. “With the football stuff and in general?”

“Yeah. Still might be crazy for doing architecture and football, but other than that. I’m even starting to get used to everyone calling pop ‘Coke’. Doesn’t matter what kind of pop it is. It’s all called ‘Coke’.”

“That’s just bizarre, dude, seriously. It’s all ‘Coke’?” There’s a noise in the background, then the sound of Hudson saying hi to someone. “Kurt’s back, so I’m gonna go. Tell Casey hey for me?”

“Will do,” Dave answers. “Take it easy, Hudson.” Hudson ends the call and Dave slides his phone back into his pocket, opening his Coke at last. Out of all of them, he’s not sure who’s more screwed – Brown or Utah.

 

**Monday, January 13th, 2014: Dayton, Ohio — Casey**

Casey has long since stopped complaining about going to see Dr. Naser. He doesn’t skip or reschedule appointments, and if he isn’t always entirely forthcoming about what’s going on in his life, he does at least put in a nominal effort towards engaging in conversation in her office. Still, he doesn’t usually go marching in and sit down in the chair across from her desk with the degree of determination with which he goes in today, crossing his arms and nodding at Dr. Naser once in greeting.

“Good afternoon, Casey,” Dr. Naser says, looking slightly amused. “You seem very serious about something today.”

“Yes,” Casey says. “I have six months, so I probably need to get started.”

Now Dr. Naser looks confused. “Get started on what, exactly?”

“I should have taken it more seriously sooner. I don’t know why I didn’t,” Casey mutters to himself, shaking his head. He looks up at Dr. Naser. “I graduate on June 1st and then I’m going to Georgia Tech with David, and when I’m in Atlanta with David, it can’t be his job to take care of me.”

“Okay,” Dr. Naser says, nodding her head slowly. “I agree with that. So…”

“So I have to make sure I can take care of myself,” Casey says. “I have to make sure nothing bad will happen, because it can’t be David’s job to fix it anymore. I have to be able to fix things by myself, or make sure they don’t go wrong to begin with, so we have six months to figure out how I can do that.”

“Casey, it doesn’t exactly work like that,” Dr. Naser says. “You don’t just decide things are going to be a certain way and then expect—”

“No, that’s what’s going to happen,” Casey says firmly. “Whatever I have to do so that when I get to Georgia Tech, I can take care of myself. I’ve been doing better, you know I’ve been doing better, but I have to make sure I’m better _enough_.”

Dr. Naser nods. “Okay, then. Let’s figure out where to start, and we’ll go from there. No more bullshit?”

“No more bullshit,” Casey agrees. 

 

**Wednesday, February 5th, 2014: Lima, Ohio — Rick**

Rick settles the OSU hat onto his head and bends the brim a little so it’s shaped right. Coach turns her head to look at him and sighs. 

“Rick, no hat yet.”

“I’m just adjusting it so it’ll look right!” Rick protests, but he takes the hat off again. “Norville’s got _his_ hat on, too!”

“Norville, Rick, both of you fools, take those hats off.” Coach shakes her head. “I swear. I like to tell people that my athletes get recruited because they are _student_ -athletes.”

“Real smooth, Tattlebacker,” Norville whispers, once Coach looks away.

“Well, you did have it on,” Rick says. “So suck it.”

“ _You_ suck it,” Norville says, but he says a little too loud and Coach turns around to glare at him.

“Boys, take your seats and get your pens ready, please,” Coach says.

“I don’t have to suck it,” Rick whispers back. “I’m not the one’s gonna be husking stuff.”

“What’s that even mean, Rick?” Norville asks, looking confused. “Is that a PFLAG thing?”

“You’d know if you came to the meetings,” Rick says, taking his seat and getting his pen ready like Coach told them to. “But you don’t, so now you’re going off to your husking school not knowing if husking’s a _thing_ or not.”

“The feed’ll turn on in thirty seconds,” Coach announces calmly. “Just follow the steps written on the board here as soon as I signal to go.”

“Fine,” Norville hisses. “I’ll go to the next meeting if you promise you’ll tell me what husking is.”

“Alright then,” Rick says, grinning at Norville. “It’s something to do with corn.”

“Goddammit, Rickenbacker, I swear I’m gonna—”

“Ten seconds!” Coach announces, then starts counting down with her fingers. 

When she gets to one, Rick whispers, “Enjoy your corn.”

Coach makes two big thumbs up and some kind of motion that’s supposed to mean go, then points to the board with a big smile. The very first step written on the board is “SMILE!” so that’s what Rick does. 

 

 **Saturday, February 15th, 2014: Canton, Ohio — Shannon**

Shannon gets to the natatorium early, so she can get a good seat. She doesn't really have that much interest in most of the events, which is why she brought her Kindle as well, but if she doesn't get there early, there's no way she'll be able to see Casey's events. 

It's odd to think about it being Casey's last high school swim meet. It's just plain odd to think about Casey getting ready to graduate, if she's honest. Every year, she thinks she ought to be used to the fact that seniors graduate and move on, and in the fall, a new class takes their place, especially since she's been doing it for almost twenty years now. Everybody was right, though, about it being different when it was her own. Casey's not her own, not legally – they didn't actually adopt him. He feels like her own, though, and she thinks that most days, he would agree that the three of them are a family of sorts. 

He doesn't look like the same boy that came to live with them, Shannon thinks, when he comes out for his first race. She can't even imagine the effects that his childhood had to have had on him—effects that she's sure will last his entire life, in some ways—but the boy in front of her isn't nearly so fragile. Not just physically, though he's obviously stronger, but mentally as well. 

The fact that he's physically stronger is readily apparent when he places in his first race, and then wins his second. Shannon knows, though, from years of coaching, that winning involves a mental component as well. Especially for Casey, who struggled with self-harm in what she thinks of as two different ways – eating disorder by definition, she would still ascribe it to the same motivations as the other, whatever those might have been. She's thankful that a combination of Dr. Naser and Casey's own desire to get better have helped him. 

Shannon's not a fool; she knows that some things are never really cured. If he never relapses, though, or manages to stop a relapse before it becomes a downward slide, that will be a victory, Shannon thinks. 

There are probably people out there who could have done better for Casey, but she and Monty did their best, evolving as their understanding of the scope of the situation evolved. At the end of the day, her kid's a state champion in an event in swimming, he's going to Georgia Tech in the fall, and he's seemingly as happy as any kid his age. 

That's one for the W column.

 

 **Thursday, February 20th, 2014: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

Two years ago, Casey almost died, but today he’s just a few months away from Georgia Tech and David, so today is a good day. He went to school, then he went for a swim, and now he’s calling David, which makes the day even better. 

David answers on the second ring. “Hello?”

“Hi,” Casey says. 

“Hey, Case,” David says. 

“Tell me all the best parts of your day,” Casey says.

“Oh, well. They had baked chicken with gravy and rice at lunch,” David begins. “And strawberry-rhubarb pie, because Florida already has ripe strawberries. So that was good. Oh, and I woke up two minutes before my alarm.”

“Oh, that’s always nice,” Casey says. “Because it’s not so long before your alarm that you could have gotten more sleep, but you don’t have to hear the alarm go off.”

“Exactly! And when I went into the kitchen I hid Coop’s Eggos behind the big roast Ty’s mother sent us. He kept trying to shake the roast so a waffle would fall out.”

Casey laughs. “Oh no! Poor Coop. Did he ever find his baseball cap?”

“That’d be pretty hard, considering we mailed it to Alpharetta,” David says with a chuckle. “Ty’s mother agreed to dispose of it, but we couldn’t chance him getting it out of the trash. So what about you? Best part of your day?”

“They had red Jell-O for lunch and I ate two of them,” Casey says. “Oh, and I went swimming for a while, and then I went by the Starbucks and got a caramel macchiato just because I was cold and I wanted one.”

“An excellent reason,” David says. 

“And SyFy’s having a monster movie marathon that starts at eight and runs until two, so I’m probably going to watch some of that. I might even eat popcorn.”

“The kind where the strings are visible?”

“Yes, because that’s the best kind,” Casey says. He leans back against his pillow and puts his arm behind his head, closing his eyes. “Now, you should tell me in great detail exactly what the weather is like in Atlanta, and I’ll pretend I’m there, okay?”

“Well. It was raining this morning, but now it’s just really windy. One of those days where the temperature drops as the day goes on, you know?”

“That sounds nice. Are there any flowers yet?”

 

**Saturday, February 22nd, 2014: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Dave snorts to himself when he gets Brown’s text, then heads downstairs to let Brown into the dorm. “Cold enough for us Ohioans?” Dave asks, holding the door open.

“Took you long enough,” Brown grumbles, hurrying inside the building. “It’s ass cold out here. Hey, Shep.”

“We’d be frozen in if it was wet,” Dave agrees. “Clemson still the same?”

“Yeah, the gem of the ACC,” Brown mutters. “Tech treating you alright?”

“No real complaints,” Dave answers honestly as they head up the stairs. “Architecture’s just a bitch wherever you are.”

“And that’s why I’m not doing architecture,” Brown says. “Never did like a bitch. I like ’em sweet.”

“What _are_ you majoring in?” Dave asks curiously.

“Philosophy,” Brown says. “And don’t you laugh. It’s what they got in the way of pre-law.”

“Do you hear me laughing?” Dave says wryly, unlocking the door to the dorm. “You grabbed lunch on the way in?”

“Yeah, but I’ll snag a pop from you if you’ve got one.”

“Do they call all pop ‘Coke’ over there, too?” Dave asks with a snort, handing Brown a can. “It’s all ‘Coke’ and then ‘what kind?’ I’ve just started being really precise.”

“Yeah, it’s the weirdest thing, how they do that!” Brown says, opening his can. “Couldn’t figure out if Coke came in a bunch of flavors down here that we didn’t have up in Ohio or what.”

“Giant southern conspiracy,” Dave says, nodding. “Heading out most of the night again?”

“Yeah. Figure I’d find a club that looks interesting. You got any you can recommend for an out-of-towner?”

“Really only been to a couple,” Dave admits. “Not sure the Osprey’s what you’re looking for.”

“What is it with Atlanta and birds?” Brown says, shaking his head. “I wrote down a few places to check out, so… Oh, so I heard things didn’t work out with you and that Josh character. That’s too bad, Shep.”

“Yeah, he wanted so bad to be a football player’s boyfriend,” Dave says with a snort. “Maybe he should call Utah.”

Brown laughs loudly. “Yeah. Yeah I guess he should!” He shakes his head. “Just between you and me, he had awfully big teeth.”

“Yeah, and he was clingy at the end,” Dave says, making a face. “On second thought… maybe I should _warn_ Utah. Josh probably would submit a blind item.”

“Poor Utah. Bad enough he’s gotta be at Utah, without the rumor mill and your ex getting a hold of him,” Brown says. “You got you some taste, Shep. You sure know how to pick ’em.”

Dave snorts and flips Miles off. “Yeah, yeah. Can you just come back with less glitter this time? Danny kept getting it on his face for a week last time.”

“And I bet he sure looked pretty,” Brown says, grinning. “I’ll do my best. I figure glitter’s not an every weekend kind of thing in Atlanta.”

“Brittany seemed to like it.” Dave shrugs. “Did anyone tell you that? Somehow I ended up with two of my dormmates dating people from McKinley, and I don’t know how that happened.”

“Obviously you’re a nexus for all things Lima, Shep! People following you to Atlanta from all over the place. They start out in Lima, eventually they all end up here. Who knows, maybe I’ll end up here and you’ll be stuck with me for the rest of your life.”

“That’s me,” Dave agrees. “The Pied Piper of the Midwest.”

 

**Tuesday, March 4th, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

“Okay,” Casey says, tilting his bowl towards the laptop screen. “I have a bowl of ice cream. What have you got?”

“The last slice of the strawberry cake Coop’s mom sent. I’m not sure she actually baked it herself, though.”

“Hmm. That might be better than ice cream,” Casey concedes. “So, did you get your project turned in?” He makes a face at the small image of himself in the lower corner on the screen. 

“Yeah, just under the wire,” David says. “No more projects… for another six days.”

“Oh, it’s almost like a vacation,” Casey says. He laughs and then eats a bite of his ice cream. “What about that thing you were going to? A lecture or something?”

“It interfered with some class that the third-year architecture students have to take, so they moved it to later tonight,” David explains. “Why they didn’t realize it sooner…” David trails off and shrugs. “That’s just Tech for you. Shaft you one way or another.”

“Sorry, David,” Casey says. “Are you still going to—”

“Dammit, Special K!” Casey hears Coop shout in the background. “Did you eat my last slice of— oh, hey Casey!” Coop says, his face appearing in the corner of the screen. “You guys Skyping?”

“Your last slice of what?” David asks innocently.

“Strawberry cake,” Coop says. “Like you’ve got on your plate right now.”

“Hi, Coop,” Casey says. “Bye, Coop.”

“Oh. Well. Bye,” Coop says, glaring at David. “I’ll get you back for this, Special K.”

“No one was here when we started,” David says to Casey, looking over his shoulder, presumably at Coop going elsewhere.

“You should eat that cake before he comes back,” Casey says. “So, are you going to be able to go to the lecture later tonight, then?”

“Yeah. I might get there fifteen minutes late, but the good stuff is usually the Q & A at the end, so.”

“Well, so that’s good, at least,” Casey says. “So, you’ll never guess what happened at PFLAG today. Pranesh was—”

“Casey!” Ty says, his face suddenly replacing Dave’s. “Hey, man. How’s it going?”

“Oh! Hi, Ty. It’s, um. Where did David go?”

“Eh, he’s right here. Eating his cake. Good job, Special K, I knew Coop was trying to hoard it. So, Casey, tell me about life in Lima this week.”

“Um. So, Pranesh—he’s in our PFLAG group—was talking about how it’s hard to come out in a traditional Indian family, and then all of a sudden Rick—that’s our friend— _fainted_. Not because of Pranesh, though,” Casey explains. “Because one of the Cheerios was showing off her stitches from having her birthmark cosmetically removed.” He frowns. “Which she shouldn’t have been doing while Pranesh was talking. It’s rude. Also, gross.”

Ty laughs. “That sounds pretty exciting. Okay, Special K’s threatening to call my mama and tell her about last week if I don’t let him have his laptop back. Bye, Casey!”

David reappears suddenly, shaking his head. “Sorry about that. Did Rick hit his head?”

“No, he was fine. What happened with Ty last week?” Casey asks. 

“Slept through an entire day of class. He’d stayed up until, who knows. Four or something, turning in an assignment.”

“Oh, that’s not as exciting as I thought it would be. I think movies have given me unreasonable expectations about campus life, David.”

“Oh, I’m sure they have,” David agrees with a grin.

“On a positive note, that means no half-naked co-eds,” Casey says. “Though I’m not actually sure what a co-ed is, other than maybe a sorority girl? Anyway, that also probably means—” This time, Casey’s interrupted by the sound of the alarm going off on his phone. “Oh, sorry!”

“Going somewhere?” David asks.

“Nope. I’m already eating some ice cream,” Casey says, holding his bowl up.

“Huh?” David frowns, but doesn’t say anything before he’s interrupted, again.

“Hey! Is that Casey in there?” Danny’s voice says, and a moment later, he rests his chin on David’s shoulder. “Casey, can you tell Brittany hi for me?”

 

**Monday, March 10th, 2014: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

"I don't know what we were thinking," Kim laments. 

"Taking this class? Or majoring in architecture?" Kyle jokes. 

"Yes. Both. All of the above."

"Oh, you two both love it," Zoe says with a smirk. "And you know it. Only people who really do love it would be able to put up with this!"

"Amen," Dave says, barely lifting up his head from where he's sprawled across the floor in the lounge that was installed at the beginning of the semester. 

"We know you have to love it," Kyle says. "Hey, were you still going to come with me to the photography club next week?"

"Yeah, that sounds good."

"How do you do everything?" Zoe says. "I swear. Dave Karofsky, Super-Tech. Architecture student by morning, football player by afternoons, and gay superstar by night!"

Dave starts to laugh immediately. "Yeah, that's totally me," he agrees through his laughter. "Gay superstar."

"Well, I don't know anyone else who's balancing all of those," Kim argues. "That makes you some kind of superstar."

The conversation continues on without Dave, and without Dave raising his first objection. How can he be a 'gay superstar' without really _doing_ anything? 

He realizes a minute later, though, that Zoe more or less knows that. Considering how often everyone sees everyone else in the studio or for a study group, and how everyone gossips, there's probably not a way for Zoe not to know that. 

All this time, Dave realizes, he's thought of being gay as something he _does_ , some set of actions, but he's not any less gay if he doesn't go to Pride Alliance or doesn't go to any clubs. It isn't something he does, it's something he is, and he realizes a few moments later that he's really, finally, okay with it.

 

**Sunday, March 23rd, 2014: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

“But at least with my gift, Case, you don’t have to worry about wearing camo involuntarily!” David says with a laugh.

“That’s true. But you can use the book I sent you to make a whole paper city to leap over in a single bound, so that’s pretty hard to top, David,” Casey counters. 

“Chichen Itza was pretty cool,” David acknowledges. “Still, I don’t think there’s anything about paper cities that relates to turning twenty.”

“But it relates to your life and your interests. Plus, if you fall asleep on them, your face doesn’t turn blue!”

“My face doesn’t actually turn blue, you know,” David says. “But how was your day outside my awesome gift?”

“Well, if this is what adulthood feels like, it feels disappointingly exactly like being in high school,” Casey sighs. “I guess I needed to have a later birthday or something.”

David laughs. “Yeah, I guess so.”

There’s a knock on Casey’s bedroom door before it opens slightly and Shannon pops her head in. “Time for cake, Casey,” she says, almost quietly.

“Okay,” he says to her, then says into the phone, “I have to go, David. There’s cake now. Well, there was cake before, but it’s time to eat it now.”

“Okay. Happy birthday, again.”

“Thank you, David. I’ll talk to you on Tuesday.”

“Bye, Case.”

“Goodbye, David,” Casey says, and waits for the sound of David ending the call before he puts his phone into his pocket and walks out of his room and to the kitchen. “I’m here for cake!”

“Excellent,” Monty says. “Candles or no candles.”

“No candles,” Casey says.

“That was a trick question. Of course there’s candles,” Monty says. 

“All eighteen of ’em,” Shannon says, “so you’d better blow ’em out quick before the smoke detector goes off.”

“Ha ha,” Casey says, rolling his eyes. 

“Fair consideration,” Shannon says. “Monty, hit the lights?”

Monty turns the lights off as Shannon lights the candles, and Casey announces, “And no singing!”

Shannon grins and starts whistling, though it’s not ‘Happy Birthday’. It’s that other birthday song, the one they used in ’80s movies, and she keeps whistling as she sets the very red cake in front of Casey.

“I have the _weirdest_ family,” Casey says, then he blows out the candles. 

 

**Tuesday, April 15th, 2014: Lima, Ohio — Taylor**

It’s the first day in 2014 that the temperature has been above 60°F, and since it’s actually above 70°F, Taylor’s beginning to think they should have just taken the PFLAG meeting outside. There is a freshman who is literally dancing as she stands at the snack table, and Taylor exchanges a glance with Casey.

“Time to rein them in again, you think?” Taylor says.

“I was thinking fire extinguishers. Maybe a hose,” Casey says. “Am I shouting this time, or are you?”

“Oh, it’s all you,” Taylor says with a grin.

“Hey!” Casey shouts. “Meeting time!”

About half of them quiet down, and the other half keep talking but look expectantly at Casey, probably waiting to see what he’ll yell next.

“Global warming!” Casey continues yelling. “Crisis scenario! Seats!”

“Well, that got their attention,” Taylor says into the suddenly quiet room. “Everyone thank Charles for the food this week.”

There’s a chorus of “Thanks, Charles” from around the room. 

“Right. So, we need to think about our end of the year stuff. Send Casey and the rest of the seniors off in style,” Taylor announces. “Any ideas?”

“I don’t really need style,” Casey says, waving his hands frantically. “Quiet reflection. Maybe, hmm. A wistful backwards look. That’s probably fine.”

“No, no, it needs to be with style,” Taylor insists. “Not fancy dinner style, but still. Some style.”

“Just don’t mention it to Aunt Shannon or it’ll end up involving a grill,” Casey sighs.

“Hey!” Rick pipes up. “I like the grill!”

“If any other seniors have strong opinions on grills, let me know,” Taylor decides. “I’m writing this up for afterelton or something. ‘Major PFLAG Controversy in High Schools: To Grill or Not to Grill’.”

“Or, you know, _not_ ,” Casey says. “Entirely non-controversial grilling that may or may not be happening, at a date and time to maybe be determined. Or not. And moving right along… Pranesh!”

Pranesh looks startled for a moment, his head swiveling to look at Casey and Taylor. “Yes?”

“Pranesh is going to be taking over the bookkeeping and organization stuff for PFLAG when I graduate,” Casey says. “Because if I leave it all in Taylor’s hands, he might accidentally, um.” He looks thoughtful for a moment, before continuing with, “I know. He might accidentally misfile the paperwork and we’d get classified as an athletic team, and then you’d all have to wear uniforms.”

A few people laugh, Pranesh looks very concerned, and Taylor shakes his head. “I wouldn’t misfile it, Casey, because I’d never get around to actually filing it!”

“Don’t worry,” Casey tells Pranesh. “That wouldn’t really happen. First, you wouldn’t misfile it, but even if you did, they know we’re not a sport.”

“As long as I don’t have to design the uniforms,” Pranesh says with a relieved smile.

“Oh! That would terrible!” Casey says, with a shudder. “The swim team’s are bad enough. I don’t want to even think about a PFLAG uniform.”

“Right, so. No uniforms, Pranesh will file things, and there may or may not be grilling.” Taylor looks at Casey again. “Any other business we had to cover before the discussion?”

“Yes,” Casey says. “To dispel the rumor you may have heard, the next PFLAG movie night will _not_ be _Rocky Horror Picture Show_ and will definitely not be including any audience participation. Got it?”

Taylor sighs exaggeratedly. “Dammit. Those of us in glee club already had dance steps planned.”

 

**Saturday, April 19th, 2014: Harrison Township, Ohio — Casey**

Casey and Taylor get down to Kate’s house at around four, and Kate’s mom lets them through the house and into the back, where Kate is already sitting on the edge of the pool with her feet in the water. She has on some sort of long-sleeved cover-up thing, and she waves over her shoulder at them without turning around.

“Hey, Taylor. Hey, Casey,” Kate says. She doesn’t call anyone a freak; she just keeps splashing her feet in the water. 

Taylor kicks off his shoes and drops down beside her. “Hey.”

“Did you see anybody else coming in when you got here?” Kate asks. 

“Nope, not yet,” Taylor answers. “Who all did you say was coming?”

“Stacy, Krista, Austin. Maybe Amanda, but I think it might be her dad’s weekend, so who knows?” Kate says. Casey sits down on Kate’s other side and she half-heartedly splashes a little water in his direction with her foot. She looks tired.

“Poor Taylor,” Casey says over Kate’s head, which is weird, because he can’t normally talk over her head. She’s so hunched over at the pool’s edge, she’s almost curled up. “The only normal person at a freak party.” He waits for Kate to laugh, maybe agree that he’s a freak or she’s a freak or the rest of them are freaks, but she doesn’t.

Taylor makes a face at Casey over Kate’s head, but it’s not totally clear what he means by it. “That’s me,” Taylor says after a few beats too long. “Not at all a freak.”

“If you were any more normal, you’d be Rick,” Casey agrees. “And nobody wants that.”

Casey hears the sound of the door at the back of Kate’s house opening, and Austin and Amanda walk out, followed a moment later by Stacy and Krista. All four of them look a little startled or confused about how Kate’s sitting by the pool, and all Casey can do is shrug at them helplessly. One by one, they remove their shoes and join Casey, Kate, and Taylor on the edge of the pool, Austin next to Casey, Amanda next to Austin, Krista next to Taylor, and Stacy sitting behind Kate, resting her head against Kate’s shoulder. 

Intellectually, Casey knows that not everybody gets better, maybe that not even most people get all the way better. Even as well as he’s doing, there’s always that chance that something could happen that’s enough to send him spiraling again. He hopes it won’t, but it could. He knows about the boy who used to go to Shush, Grady, who got sent somewhere because he couldn’t get better and stay better. It’s different, though, to see it happening to a friend. Kate isn’t doing better, she’s doing so much worse; that much, Casey’s sure of.

Casey puts his arm around Kate, and it rests against Taylor’s arm around her waist, and the whole group of them sit there by the pool, all leaning against each other and slowly kicking their feet in the water. There’s nothing that Casey, or Taylor, or any of them can do for Kate, and Casey wonders if his own friends and family felt this same kind of helplessness over him. Probably they did, not that having been on both sides of it gives Casey any particular insight into what to do. Sometimes things just go wrong, and that’s how it is.

 

**Friday, May 2nd, 2014: Atlanta, Georgia — Dave**

Dave climbs back into his truck, folds up the sheaf of papers in his hand, and puts his camera back in his bag. The GT photography club had had a cool idea, a collection of Atlanta scavenger hunts, with different ones for each of the different schools. Dave had kept putting it off, thinking he'd have more time later, but it wasn't until he had finished his finals the day before that he actually made the time. 

He'd woken up, gotten on MARTA with his camera, then headed back to campus for lunch before climbing in his truck and criss-crossing the metropolitan Atlanta area. His memory card is probably close to full now, and he drives through a Steak ‘n Shake on the way for a double and a milkshake.

Coop and Danny both have an exam on the last day during the last exam period, which sucks for them, and Dave calls out a hello, but Ty doesn't answer. Dave puts his memory card into the reader, then plugs it into the laptop, downloading all the pictures and starting to pull out the best shot of each stop into a separate album. He uploads the final selections to Picasa and then, after a few minutes, decides to send the link directly to Casey. 

_post-exam stress relief or something like it_ he texts right after the link. 

_As long as they aren’t of cats, that’s not really art you know_ Casey texts back.

 _I’m not Danny!_ Dave immediately protests.

_You never know David, he could be influencing you in some way_

Just a few minutes pass before Casey starts commenting on the pictures via Picasa. The first four or five are what Dave would more or less expect, that he likes the pictures, but on the next one, it just says _David is that a chicken?_

Dave laughs and goes to respond. _Yeah, it’s called the Big Chicken._

Casey’s response follows in a matter of seconds. _Misnomer. It’s an Exceptionally Huge Chicken. Is it real?_

_People use it for directions, even. Totally real._

_Weird._

Casey must move on to the next picture after that, because the next comment is just _Ha! I can see your feet in this one!_

Dave laughs and shakes his head, reading through the comments as they come across. Most of them are just about what Casey likes about the pictures, though a couple ask where, exactly, the building or whatever is.

There’s one that wasn’t on the scavenger hunt, really, but Dave had stopped anyway, taking a picture of the old concrete steps with the few flowers struggling up through them. Casey comments on that one with _When I come to Atlanta, take me here._

Dave grins to himself and shakes his head once. Of course it's the one that he stopped on a whim, because he liked how it all looked, the composition of it. He can even remember exactly where it was, since it wasn't on the list he took with him, directions carefully written out. He pulls up Labor Day on his calendar and makes a note, complete with directions to it. The same flowers won't still be blooming, but there should be something there. 

 

**Wednesday, May 7th, 2014: Dayton, Ohio — Casey**

Kate isn’t always the first one to Shush, but she’s never the last. Being this late means she’s probably not coming at all, and Casey and Austin exchange worried looks before Casey pulls out his phone and texts Taylor.

_Is kate with you?_

Taylor texts back _no is she not there?_

_No and we’re starting now, will text if she shows up_

Casey gets Taylor’s reply of _k. thx_ , then tucks his phone back into his pocket as the Shush facilitator settles into her seat, looking unhappy and slightly shaken. Casey looks at Austin, whose face is grim, his mouth set in a tight line. He looks around the room at the girls, who one by one fall quiet. Jonathan holds Alexandra’s hand, then Stacy takes Alexandra’s other hand, and it just goes around the circle until they’re all holding hands and watching the facilitator expectantly.

“Well?” Amanda finally says, when the facilitator doesn’t speak. “Where’s Kate?”

The facilitator sighs and shakes her head. “Kate’s parents called me this afternoon to let me know what happened. Unfortunately, Kate has had a self-harm incident and has been hospitalized. She’ll be away for a while, but her parents said they’d provide an address in a few days, once she’s settled in.”

Casey sees the news sink in for each person, but weirdly, nobody cries, not even Jonathan. They all seem to understand it, even to have been expecting it to happen eventually, if not to Kate, then to somebody. There’s no argument from anyone, just an unremarkable acceptance.

Discussion is understandably stilted that session, nobody really feeling much like talking, and when the forty-five minutes are up, the ones who drove themselves leave, including Casey and Austin, who walk out to their cars together. Casey leans against the front of Austin’s white SUV and frowns.

“This is going to make prom really weird,” Casey says, because while that’s pretty much the least important part of what happened with Kate, it’s also the only part that’s really small enough to talk about. “Poor Taylor.”

“Yeah,” Austin agrees. “Just play up the ‘group thing’ part of it, I guess?”

“I guess so,” Casey says, shrugging. “Maybe come up a little early so we can go ahead and get dressed. Knowing Taylor, he’ll probably swipe a joint from his dad, and I don’t think I can put on a tuxedo stoned. It’s already complicated enough when everything’s normal.”

Austin laughs. “I’ll see you on Saturday, then,” he says, then he gets into his SUV and drives away. Casey sits in the Lemon for a few minutes before he pulls his phone out of his pocket again. He has to call Taylor and tell him what happened, and it’s not a call he really wants to make. 

 

**Tuesday, May 20th, 2014: Maryville, Tennessee/Lima, Ohio — Dave**

"You should come back down a few days early, before preseason," Danny offers as Dave throws the last of his bags back in the truck. "Get you some more of that candy, maybe."

Dave laughs. "Yeah, maybe so. Have a good summer."

"I will! Brit and I are gonna go to see the domesticated Jesus dinosaurs in Kentucky, and maybe that big cave in Kentucky, too."

"Have fun!" Dave says, climbing in the truck and waving as he backs out of Danny's driveway. 

Three days after the end of the semester, Coop had announced Dave was staying with him for a few days, then Ty, and finally with Danny. This was news to Ty and Danny as well, but that did end up being exactly what had happened. Dave had spent three days driving around in a golf cart in Peachtree City before going north to Alpharetta, which had involved a lot more traffic and a lot fewer golf carts. 

He had spent longer at Danny's, partially because everything around it was new territory. For two of the days, they had driven to Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, which was an experience Dave doesn't know how to describe. The fifty dollars worth of candy sitting in the passenger seat doesn't really help to explain it, either, but Dave thinks he'll try to summarize it as fake German 'architecture' with a lot of places to buy candy and knickknacks, plus breakfast places. 

Now, though, it's well-past the middle of May, and time to head the rest of the way up I–75 to Lima. Danny's family gets up early, which means Dave stops for a mid-morning snack in Kentucky and for lunch between Cincinnati and Dayton. He rolls into Lima around two in the afternoon and heads straight for the house, unloading everything from the truck before collapsing on the couch with a pop. 

After he drains half of the can, he pulls out his phone and sends a text to Casey. 

_If I were multiple people, I could start quoting 'the boys are back in town' but instead it's just me, my truck, and the pop I took from the fridge_

_If you were multiple people, things would be a lot more complicated_ Casey texts back.

Dave laughs, drinking more of the pop. _True. Almost done with class?_

_Soon! Not soon enough though_

_Meet at the Chinese buffet? I just drove through a Wendy’s for lunch._

_Promise you won’t get the shrimp with the faces still on them, you know those weird me out_

_No faces on any food, I promise_ Dave sends back quickly.

_Then yes, acceptable meeting place and I’ll text when I leave_

_See you there :)_

_Not if I’m invisible!_

Dave laughs and drains the rest of his pop, then stands up. Casey’s a lot closer to the buffet than Dave is, so he’ll go ahead and leave. He discards his can, sticks his phone in his pocket, and looks around the house. He wonders if his dad ever feels like he’s rattling around in too big of a house. He sighs and shrugs. Once Casey’s in Atlanta, he figures it’s more likely for sure that Paul will come visit Dave in Atlanta, rather than Dave visiting Paul in Lima. 

The door pulled shut behind him, Dave gets back in his truck and heads to the gas station before taking the slower route through town. It’s true that nothing much seems to change in Lima, and he knows Casey will be glad to put it in his rearview mirror, figuratively and literally.

 

**Saturday, May 24th, 2014: Lima, Ohio — Rick**

Rick had to do a lot of planning and preparing on the front end, but once that was all done, all he had to do was wait and see what Alicia thought about it. Now the two of them are out at dinner, and Rick’s sweating all over his nice dress shirt that his mama bought him to take to college, hoping that he’s practiced his speech enough not to stumble all over it.

“Daniel? Do you have something on your mind?” Alicia asks.

“You look real pretty tonight, Alicia!” Rick more or less blurts out to keep himself from starting his speech too soon.

“Thanks.” Alicia smiles. “But are you okay? Are you getting a summer cold?”

“Let’s get our dessert to go and we’ll eat it down by the lake at the park!” Rick says. 

“Okay.” Alicia looks surprised. “I guess it’s not allergies, then.”

“Nope, I’m not allergic to anything. My mama says I’m usually healthy as a horse,” Rick says. “Though, my aunt and uncle’s horse gets sick all the time, so maybe that’s not quite right.”

Alicia laughs. “Oh, Daniel. Maybe he’s just a sickly horse.”

Rick hadn’t really considered that one, and it makes him smile. “I guess you might be right.”

They do get their dessert to go, plus some disposable forks and napkins, and Rick drives them over to Schoonover. They walk down by the lake and sit on the grass and eat their dessert, and Rick keeps patting his pocket to make sure he hasn’t lost the box. 

“Why are you so fidgety, Daniel? Is it too hot out here?” Alicia asks, frowning slightly.

He may as well get to it, since she’s starting to get suspicious, so he just launches right into his speech. “Now, Alicia, it’s been a real wonderful two years and two months and eleven days of being your boyfriend.” 

Alicia stares at him. “Are you breaking up with me?” she asks, her voice getting higher at the end of the sentence.

“Huh?” Rick says, because that doesn’t make any sense at all. “What are you talking about?”

“You sound like you’re about to break up with me!”

“What? I don’t sound like that!” Rick protests. “I don’t sound like that at all!”

“Then why are you counting how long we’ve been together?”

“’Cause I keep track of it! Why? Don’t you keep track of it?”

“Yes, but I don’t remark upon it!”

“I was just saying it’s been real wonderful,” Rick says. “I don’t see what the problem is with that!”

“But why?” Alicia looks confused. “Why, Daniel?”

“Dangit, Alicia! I’m trying to ask you to marry me! Now can you just shush for a hot minute so I can do that?” Rick asks, then adds, “Shit. Now I’ve messed up my speech.”

“What?” Alicia blinks. “I am stunned,” she says.

Rick pulls the box out of his pocket. It’s not much of a ring, but it’s all he can afford, so hopefully she likes it. He opens the box and gets up onto one knee. “Alicia Brown. Would you do me the very great honor of becoming my wife?”

“Daniel, we’re still in high school.” She seems to be breathing a little fast. “Do my parents know about this?!”

“Of course,” Rick says. “I went to talk to your dad, and he said, ‘Son, you’d better talk to my wife’, and then I talked to your Ma, and she said, ‘Aren’t you a sweetheart?’ Oh, and then Brown came in to the kitchen and said, ‘Oh, Jesus Christ, Foots!’”

“Well.” Alicia bites her bottom lip. “Now, Daniel, you know I love you, but this is a little early in my life to be getting engaged, much less married.”

“I figured we could wait on the getting married part,” Rick says eagerly. “Don’t worry about that. I just didn’t want to go off to college and leave you here all alone, thinking I didn’t take this serious enough. I take us _real_ serious, Alicia. I wanna marry you someday.”

“But we don’t have to be engaged just yet for that to be true, Daniel,” Alicia says softly. “Come on, now, sit back down and we’ll talk about this.”

“You’re saying no, aren’t you?” Rick asks, maybe a little bit pitifully. 

“I’m saying ‘not yet’,” Alicia says, then shakes her head and grins. “With a side of you crazy boy!”

Rick sits back down on the ground next to Alicia and sighs. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to try again next year, then.”

“Well, okay,” Alicia says, picking up his hand and lacing their fingers together. “We should finish our dessert now.”

 

**Tuesday, May 27th, 2014: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

Casey’s most of the way through his English final when he feels his phone vibrating in his pocket. He slips the phone out and rests it on his leg, reading the text from David. 

_Still can’t believe you don’t want to see The Hangover Part 3_

Casey quickly types back _Somebody in Lima has to have standards David_ and sets the phone back on his lap, looking back at his essay on _The Catcher in the Rye_ and its theme of alienation as a form of self-protection. 

_Guess you’d better appoint someone else for that task then_ David sends a few minutes later.

 _Once I’m gone it’s their problem_ Casey responds, then he puts his phone back into his pocket and walks his essay up to the front and puts it on Mrs. Corbie’s desk. “Can I go to the library?”

Mrs. Corbie waves him towards the door without really looking up from the book she’s reading—which Casey thinks looks a whole lot more like a romance novel than literature—and he texts David again as soon as he’s out of the room. 

_I never have to write about Catcher in the Rye again, I hate that book_

_Unless you’re unlucky enough to have it assigned at Tech. Sorry. Check the previous syllabi before you pick a prof_

_I will drop the class before I read this book again_ Casey texts, walking into the library and sitting down at a table. 

_Like I said look at syllabi. Ty got lucky and had one that only taught short stories_

_That’s it, I changed my mind, I’m going to culinary instead, nice knowing you David_

_Case they make you cook more than just boxed mac n cheese at culinary_

_Have YOU ever been to culinary school? Cause you don’t know_

_I’ve seen the infomercials_

_I can cook lots of stuff you know, it’s not just mac n cheese_

_Like what?_

_Oatmeal_

_That’s… it comes in a packet. I’m not sure adding boiling water is cooking. If it is then Coop’s a chef._

_Oh hush David I can make other stuff too like fried eggs_ , Casey types furious, then sends David another text immediately after that says, _but only if you like them cooked all the way through and with the yolks broken, you like them like that right?_

It takes a few minutes for David’s reply to come through. _I’m not yet convinced._

_I can make spaghetti, hamburger helper but I don’t eat it, and sandwiches. I can keep us alive!_

_I wouldn’t cancel your meal plan just yet tho_

_You are hurting my feelings, I’m so sad now David_

_I don’t believe it. Prove it!_

Casey composes his face into the most pitifully dejected face he can manage and snaps a picture of himself with his phone, texting it to David. He’s sure he looks convincingly miserable, even if he laughs a little after he sends it. 

_When Ty texts again and asks about you I’m forwarding that picture okay?_

_He’ll think you made me sad_

_Sure he will. I’ll live with Ty’s poor opinion of me don’t worry_

_Your turn_

_I think it’s a vast improvement_ David sends, immediately followed by a picture of his left hand with a face drawn on the side of it.

Casey laughs, then covers his mouth when the librarian glares at him, then gets a marker out of his bag. He slips his foot out of his shoe and draws a smiley face on his toe, then takes a picture of his foot and sends it to David along with the message _No David, a real picture, like this one_

_Oh I thought that was a connect the dot page ;)_

Casey laughs again and uses the marker to draw lines between the freckles on the tops of his toes and foot, then he texts _OK David but I can’t tell what it’s supposed to be, can you?_

_Obviously it’s a flux capacitor Case!_

_I thought maybe it was a map of China or a dinosaur_

_Nah everybody knows now dinosaurs are birds or birds are dinosaurs and that’s definitely not a bird._ A minute passes before another text comes through. _Do you have to actually study or anything?_

_If I write my name on my final exam paper I’ll still make a high enough grade to keep a B in that class so no I am not studying, I am being bored if you stop talking to me_

_Too bad Lima doesn’t exempt seniors from finals_

_So what tie are you wearing to my graduation?_

_The invisible one_

_Are you wearing the matching suit?_

_No, just the matching sweater. I went for contrast with the tie when it comes to my shirt and pants. Too matchy?_

Casey laughs loudly and the librarian shushes him, then he texts back _Well its good you aren’t wearing invisible pants because pretty sure those chairs are rentals so who knows where they’ve been?_


	16. Summer 2014

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The past belongs in Lima; the important things travel with them to Atlanta.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warnings: Mentions in flashback scenes of serious child physical abuse (including discussion of injuries and medical treatment); Domestic violence; Homophobic language, violence, and bullying; Parental homophobia; Internalized homophobia; Bullying in school; Self-harm; Eating disorders; Maternal abandonment; Illegal drug use; Alcohol abuse and related violence; References to troubling canonical events.**

**Sunday, June 1st, 2014: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

Graduation is pretty much exactly as boring as it sounds like it would be. The hat is itchy and the robes are too hot to be wearing outside on the first day of June. The valedictorian is some girl who was in all of Casey’s AP classes, but whose name he never learned because she never wanted to talk to anybody. She’s already six minutes into a speech that makes him certain that the reason she didn’t want to talk to anybody is that she has absolutely no personality whatsoever. The speech has something to do with geese, though what exactly, Casey doesn’t know, because he tuned it out two minutes in.

Somewhere out in the stands, David, Paul, and Monty are watching Casey sit on a riser on the football field being bored. He can’t see where they’re sitting, though, because whoever set everything up did it the wrong way, so the glare from the sun is right in the graduates’ faces. Alternatively, it could have been set up like that on purpose, and is supposed to be symbolic. It seems like the kind of thing a school would do.

Eventually, though, Principal Figgins starts calling out names, and about a million names later, he finally calls “O’Brien, Casey” and Casey shakes Principal Figgins’ hand and accepts the fake rolled-up diploma. He walks down the stairs from the stage, where Shannon is standing by a table of real diplomas in folders, and she swaps out the fake diploma for the real one. Shannon winks at him and he feigns impending death for a second, then he goes to find his seat and wait out the rest of graduation. 

Shannon has to return the fake diplomas to the storage closet and dismantle some of the graduation set-up, so Monty rides to lunch with Paul, David rides with Casey, and Shannon follows a little later in her own car. Casey’s pulling out of the stadium parking lot when he glances over at David and grins.

“So, I’m a graduate,” Casey says. 

“Did you check to make sure?” David asks, chuckling. “Coach could’ve given you a fake folder, you know.”

“I’m taking it on spec,” Casey says. “They want me to graduate. I’m troublesome.”

“Oh, sure, right,” David says with a nod. “Very troublesome.”

“I’m a miscreant, David. It can’t be helped.”

“Should’ve had them put that on your diploma, or maybe in the yearbook.”

“Have you _looked_ at my yearbook? My picture’s enough to prove that I’m a miscreant,” Casey says. “Uncle Monty called my yearbook the Book of Scowls.”

“That just proves you were angry at the camera, though. Not that you were decidedly up to no good.” David grins.

“No, I was. I was definitely up to no good,” Casey insists. The Old Barn Downtown is so close to McKinley that he’s already approaching the restaurant, so he scans for parking spots. He finds one he can parallel park in, which he does, mostly to show off that he still remembers how to parallel park after all that practice. “The best thing about Old Barn is that nothing has faces.”

“On the buffet?” David agrees. “Well, except the people refilling the food.”

“Which, since we’re not eating them, doesn’t count,” Casey counters. “I’m not eating any people, anyway. Whatever you want to do is totally up to you. I wouldn’t stand in the way of your cannibalism.”

“Lima’s Finest might, though, which I guess is understandable,” David says as he climbs out of the Lemon. 

“They shouldn’t oppress you like that,” Casey says, closing his door behind him and pocketing his keys. “You should sue.”

“I think I have to get arrested before I can sue, so I’ll just skip it,” David says with a little shrug. “I mean, I don’t think I look good in orange, Case.”

“David, _nobody_ looks good in orange! I keep telling people that, and they keep not listening to me.”

“Not even Monty?” David asks, gesturing to where Paul and Monty are approaching. 

“He does have an orange tie, but, well…” Casey shrugs. “I stand by my statement.”

“Well, congratulations, Casey!” Paul says jovially, offering Casey his hand. “Do you feel any different?”

“Yes, I feel damp,” Casey says, shaking Paul’s hand. “Nobody should have to graduate outside in those robes.”

“It was warm!” Paul agrees. “David here had the right idea.”

“More like I asked Ty and Coop, since they’ve been getting dressed up for stuff in warm weather for years,” David says wryly.

“I needed a shirt like that one,” Casey says, gesturing at David’s blue, lightweight shirt. “Plus, it looks nice with the invisible tie.”

“It’s the best kind of tie.” David grins and opens the door, holding it open for the rest of them. Since they have a reservation, they get seated quickly, and Casey drinks his entire glass of water in a few seconds. 

After he puts his glass down, Casey says, “Hey, David, look at that!” and points across the room. When David looks in the direction Casey’s pointing, Casey swaps his empty water glass for David’s full glass. David turns back and just raises his eyebrows at Casey. 

“Really, Case?”

“What?” Casey asks, making the most innocent face ever and sipping from his stolen glass of water.

One of the servers walks past then, and David stops him. “Can you bring a couple of extra waters?” David gestures to Casey. “Or a carafe.”

“I’m dangerously dehydrated,” Casey says, straight-faced. “It’s a potential health crisis.”

“Exactly.” David shrugs and looks like he’s about to say something else, when Shannon approaches.

“I told you not to wait to get food!” Shannon says, gesturing for the four of them to stand up. “C’mon, let’s hit that buffet! I think I saw some cherry cobbler with the desserts, Casey.”

“The really really red kind?” Casey asks.

Shannon nods. “Redder than a McKinley uniform.”

“That’s acceptably red,” Casey says. He heads straight for the desserts and puts a scoop of cherry cobbler into a bowl, then a scoop of salad into another bowl before sitting back at the table.

David and Shannon take the longest to go through the buffet, returning with two plates each. David grins at Casey. “Do you think I should go get more, Case?”

“Hmm. Do they have those rolls?”

“Yeah.” David laughs. “Also some suspicious mac n’ cheese.”

“Oh, you shouldn’t eat that. It’s soy,” Casey says. The reminder alarm on his phone goes off, and he quickly silences it. “And yes, I think you should go get a whole plate of nothing but rolls, and bring them back to the table.”

David nods thoughtfully. “As long as I get at least one of them.”

“You should consider eating it on the way back to the table,” Casey suggests. “I can’t make any promises.”

David laughs and stands up, bringing back a plate of rolls plus one in his hand that he’s already taken a bite from. “I hope you’re going to share with everyone else,” he jokes.

“Maybe Casey’d rather have all these rolls than a graduation cake?” Shannon asks.

“Why must I choose? Why does everything have to be a choice?” Casey says, with a dramatic, if quiet, bang of his hands on the table. “David, do you _see_ how they are?”

“Since you’re already disgruntled, does that mean I should go ahead and take some pictures?” Monty asks.

“Noooooo!” Casey says. “See, David? They like me _too much_. They always want to take my picture.”

David shakes his head slowly. “That’s horrible, Casey. I can’t believe they want to take your picture.”

“I know!” Casey says. “I have the weirdest family in Lima. I might have the weirdest family in western Ohio. It would probably be the weirdest family in _all_ of Ohio, but Taylor told me about that show choir from Youngstown that dressed up like mariachis. They _have_ to come from weirder families.”

“Maybe those families just have weird kids,” Shannon says. Then she shrugs. “But if you want Monty and I to dress up like mariachis, we can look into that.”

“Aunt Shannon,” Casey sighs. “My life is already the Desmond Mariachi Experience.”

 

**[2004 — Casey]**

It was never that good at home. Casey doesn’t remember the first time Mick hit him, and by third grade, he can’t even really separate out instances, other than the ones that ended in a doctor visit. It’s part of Casey’s normal life, just how it is, and he didn’t realize it wasn’t like that for everyone until he was in second grade. He just assumed everyone’s dads hit them. Everyone’s dads push their moms into the wall. Everyone’s dads call them “sissy” and tell them to stop crying like a little girl, to shut up their little liar’s voices, to man up. Only, of course, everyone’s dads _didn’t_ really do that.

Before third grade, though, when Mick went to hit Casey, Amy would try to intervene. It rarely did any good, but she tried. When Mick hit Amy, though, Casey hid. One day, sometime around Christmas Casey’s third grade year, though, he’s standing in the kitchen, watching Mick yell at Amy, something about money she wants to spend or has spent already on Christmas presents. Mick pulls back his arm to hit Amy, and Casey catches him by the sleeve.

“Don’t hit her, dad! Stop!” Casey says, and as Mick slowly turns around, Casey sees something in Amy’s face. He’s not sure exactly what it means, but it almost looks like relief. Before he can figure it out, though, Mick’s fist balls up, and he hits Casey in the side of the head, just above his ear. Casey hits the ground, ear ringing, and he glances up at Amy for help.

Amy looks at him for a long moment, as he’s sprawled there on the ground with Mick standing over him, before she turns and quietly walks out of the kitchen and into her bedroom, shutting the door behind him. She stays in the bedroom while Mick hits him and screams at him, and she doesn’t come out again until Mick passes out drunk in his recliner and it’s time for her to fix dinner.

She doesn’t mention what happened, and when she looks in Casey’s direction, he feels more like she’s looking _through_ him than at him. Even though Casey’s face is bruised—he’ll miss the rest of the school week—and his ears are still ringing, he still feels just a little bit proud of himself for standing up for his mom. He knows how much trouble he causes, he knows how hard she has to work, so if he can protect her from Mick, at least that’s one small thing he can do. He can make life a little bit easier for her, make her a little bit happier.

When Casey’s in the bathroom later that night, brushing his teeth before bed, he looks up at the mirror to see Amy’s reflection, standing behind him. He stands a little straighter, standing up like a man, how Mick always tells him to stand, and waits for her to say something, anything. To tell him she loves him, maybe even that she’s proud of him for standing up to Mick.

Instead, she just shakes her head slightly before looking away. “Stop provoking him like that,” she says softly, then she turns and walks back into the bedroom, closing the door behind her. 

 

**Tuesday, June 3rd, 2014: Lima, Ohio — Dave**

Dave leans against the Ms. Pac-Man game, watching Casey play. “Watch out!”

“You’re distracting me on purpose!” Casey retorts. “Hush!”

“I wouldn’t!” Dave says, even though it’s possible that he might. “Besides, you were trying to give me ‘strategy hints’ on my last turn.”

“David, it’s not my fault that they don’t teach Ms. Pac-Man at college. It’s too bad, though, ’cause you might have actually gotten better at it if they did,” Casey says, obviously trying not to grin. 

“Better hope you have fun on this one,” Dave says, laughing. “I’m going to monopolize it as soon as you’re done.”

Before Casey finishes, though, a small girl-child tugs on Dave’s jeans. “Excuse me, do you know my daddy?”

“Um.” Dave shrugs. “I… don’t think so?”

Casey makes a small noise of frustration as a ghost catches Ms. Pac-Man and ends his game, then he looks down at the girl holding on to Dave’s jeans. “Um. David? Did you know you have a kid on you?”

“Yeah, she asked if I knew her daddy.”

“Do _you_ know my daddy?” the girl says, looking at Casey this time.

Casey squints back at her. “Hmm. She looks vaguely familiar. She’s a vaguely familiar looking child.”

“Beth! You have to stop asking people if they know—” the person speaking behind Dave stops and laughs. “Okay, good job, you found people that do.”

“I did?” The girl beams at Dave and Casey. “You know my daddy!”

“Puck!” Casey exclaims. “Oh! This is your Beth! See, David, I said she was vaguely familiar, and she _is_!”

Dave turns around, and in fact, it is Puckerman. “There you go, Case,” Dave agrees. “Puckerman.”

Puck shakes his head. “Sorry about that. She’s been asking everyone if they know me. You’re just lucky she stopped before she continued asking questions.”

“If you know my daddy, do you know Aunt Han? And Uncle Kurt? And Uncle Finn and Odd?”

“Right. Spoke too soon.” Puck laughs. “How are you two?”

“Um. Yes to Uncle Kurt, yes to Uncle Finn, and Odd is the baby?” Casey asks Beth. 

“Odd’s a baby,” Beth agrees, nodding her head, and Dave turns to Puck. 

“Pretty good. Almost didn’t recognize you.”

Puck laughs. “Yeah, well. How’s Tech treating you?”

“No complaints. Well, maybe a few, but they’re my own fault for picking architecture, so that’s not really Tech’s fault,” Dave says, and when he listens to what Beth and Casey are talking about, it seems to be an interrogation concerning Casey’s lack of baby siblings, cousins, or children of his own.

“No,” Casey tells her. “I don’t have any of those kinds of babies.”

“You should get a baby!” Beth informs Casey. “But maybe not one that you have to change the diapers. Uncle Kurt makes Uncle Finn do that.”

“I have baby corn. It’s in a can,” Casey says.

“Does it cry?” Beth asks.

“Hey, Puck, did you find— _hey_! Karofsky and Casey!” Finn says, as he approaches from the other direction. “How are you guys doing?”

“Uncle Finn, he doesn’t have any babies!” Beth says to Finn. “No babies, just corn in a can. Odd, it’s so sad!” 

“Baff! Hi!” the toddler holding Finn’s hand says to Beth. “A corn?”

“In a can!”

“Hey, Hudson,” Dave says. “That’s your sister?”

“Yeah, she’s pretty ugly, but we’ll keep her anyway,” Finn says, picking up the little girl so she can wave at Dave and Casey. “Here, Audie-Aud. These are my friends Dave and Casey.”

“A corn?” Audrey asks. “Hi! Yes! A corn?”

“I think you should have skipped the corn, Casey,” Dave says with a grin. 

“Finn, I told you to go the— oh, hello.” Now Kurt walks up, along with a girl who’s probably in middle school. “David, Casey, it’s good to see you.”

“Skunk-hair, you didn’t tell us where you were going,” the middle schooler says to Finn.

“You just didn’t hear me with those tiny little mole ears,” Finn says. 

“I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to talk about corn!” Casey says, sounding distressed.

“Stop it, you two,” Puck says to Finn and the middle schooler. “I swear, they’ve always been like this,” he says apologetically to Dave and Casey, and Dave nods, even though he’s still not sure who the middle schooler is, or why she’s insulting Finn.

“She started it,” Finn protests. “She started it by being born.”

The girl sniffs and wraps her arm around Kurt’s elbow. “That’s okay, Kurt still loves me.” She tilts her head exactly like Kurt always did in high school, then, looking at Dave and Casey. “Noah, who are they?”

“Hannah, this is Karofsky and Casey,” Puck says, gesturing to each of them. “Karofsky, Casey, my little sister Hannah.”

“Who is now eleven, thank you very much,” the girl—Hannah—says smugly, then waves at them.

“Oh!” Casey exclaims. “That’s why you look like Beth, only bigger.”

“Nice to meet you,” Dave manages to say. “So, uh. Back in town for the summer or just a few days?”

Audrey starts squirming in Finn’s arm, grumbling, “Femm, a corn? No! A corn!”

“Just a few days,” Finn manages to say while maintaining his grip on Audrey. “We’re leaving tomorrow. Geez, Aud, I’ll get you some corn when we leave, ok?”

“That’s the Hudson half,” Kurt says sweetly, grinning at Finn. “But yes,” Kurt continues, switching his attention to Dave, “we’re heading back to New York tomorrow. You?”

“Oh, I stayed in Atlanta last summer and got physics out of the way, so I don’t have to hang around there this summer,” Dave answers. “I’ll be around until preseason starts.”

“Yeah, that’s cool,” Puck says, nodding. “You working for Ms. Horatio until you head out, Casey?”

“Yes, because otherwise I’d languish from lack of caffeine,” Casey answers. 

Puck laughs. “I hear you.” Beth tugs on his jeans and Puck bends down, listening to her whisper something, before he straightens. “Apparently we should go get Odd some corn and the rest of us ice cream now,” he says. “But it was good to see you.”

“Good to see you, too!” Casey says. “Have fun with your ice cream. Goodbye, child-people.”

“Bye!” Beth says brightly. “I’ll eat your ice cream!”

Dave snickers and returns her wave as Puck, Finn, and Kurt herd the three girls out in front of them. “Yeah, that girl’s related to Puckerman,” he says quietly to Casey.

 

**[March 2005 — Dave]**

Recess is usually one of Dave’s favorite things about fifth grade, but it’s been raining for a week, close to freezing and turning into snow, so recess is in the gym, and they’ve taped off four-square courts and divided people into groups of five. Dave gets put in a group with two guys from a different fifth-grade class, plus Finn and Puck.

One of the other guys stays in for a long time, trying really hard to knock out Dave, Finn, and Puck, and not trying at all to get his friend out, but Puck finally sends him out and moves up with a whoop.

“Yeah, see, _I_ got the job done!”

Dave rolls his eyes but doesn’t say anything, until Puck starts using the same tactics, only trying to keep Finn in the game.

“Guess you’re used to taking care of it since your dad ran off!” Dave snaps when Puck starts gloating again after sending Dave temporarily out of the game.

Puck glares at him and throws the ball at him, hard, even though Dave’s not supposed to be playing, and Dave jumps out of the way.

“Don’t listen to him, Puck,” Finn says, scowling at Dave, his volume increasing as he continues talking. “Dave just thinks he’s so _cool_ ’cause he’s got pubes.”

Puck starts to snicker before Finn even finishes talking, the two boys playing with them begin to laugh, and a few of the groups playing near them start to laugh, too. After a few more seconds, Finn laughs along with the rest of them, and Dave can hear the laughter spreading.

Dave can feel his face heat up, and he can’t decide if he should run from the gym or ignore them as best he can. He does decide that one day, he’s going to get Finn Hudson back for this. It doesn’t even matter if Dave does or doesn’t have ‘pubes’ as Finn put it (he does); the idea of it is enough for his classmates to talk and laugh. Finn made a laughingstock of him, whether or not he meant to – and Dave thinks he probably meant to.

 

**Sunday, June 8th, 2013: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

While David goes into the kitchen to get more pop, Casey swaps out the DVDs. David returns with two cans of pop, plus a bag of chips and what looks like a bowl of salsa, which he puts on the coffee table. David sits back down on the sofa next to Casey, and Casey swings his legs back over the sofa arm so he can prop his head up on David’s leg again.

“Ready?” Casey asks, holding up the remote.

“Go for it,” David agrees. “There’s some corn chips and dip, too, but I felt like salsa.”

Casey never feels like salsa, so he shrugs slightly and starts the movie. “I think the Thor movies are the weakest link.”

“Probably, but they’re fun.” David’s body shifts in a shrug. “You want me to go get the other chips?”

“No, I’m good,” Casey says. 

“You sure? We’ve got other stuff, too, but I don’t know. Felt like something salty.”

“No, I don’t want anything.”

“Case.” David sighs.

“David,” Casey replies, mimicking David’s tone and following it with a dramatic sigh. “I don’t want anything right now. It’s fine.”

“Uh-huh,” David says skeptically. 

“I’ll eat if I want to eat,” Casey says, feeling slightly annoyed. 

“Right.” David mutters something so quietly that Casey can’t tell what he’s saying, then continues more loudly with “Fine. Fine. Never mind me.”

“It’s not _about_ you,” Casey retorts. “It’s about me not wanting something to eat right now.”

“Yeah, sure,” David says with a snort. “That’s all.”

Casey kicks his feet slightly and makes a noise of frustration. “Yes, that’s all. I don’t want any chips. I just want to watch the movie. That’s all that it’s—” He’s interrupted by the alarm going off on his phone. He silences it and says, “Alright, I’ll eat some chips.”

David gives him a strange look and pushes the chips towards him, then looks between Casey, the phone, and the bag of chips. Casey takes a handful of chips without really sitting up, and holds them in one hand, eating them with the other while he watches the end of what’s probably the last trailer before the main menu. David doesn’t say anything else, and when the menu pops up on the screen finally, Casey looks up at David and asks, “What?”

“So you don’t want what’s offered, I offer other stuff, you don’t want any of it, and then, what? A bell rings and suddenly you do?”

“It was my alarm,” Casey explains. 

“Yeah, I gathered it was an alarm,” David says. “That doesn’t explain anything.”

“Oh. Hmm. Yes, I guess that doesn’t,” Casey concedes. “Okay, here.” He picks up his phone and goes to his alarms, then hands the phone to David. “Look and then if you have questions, I’ll explain better.”

David looks through them and then hands the phone back to Casey, one eyebrow raised. “Still not really an explanation, but I think I’m beginning to see what you’re saying.”

“Sometimes I think I’m not hungry,” Casey says. “But probably I should be. So, alarms. If I think I’m not hungry, but the alarm goes off and I’m not already eating something, then maybe I might actually be hungry. It’s a bell because it’s funnier that way.”

“Okay.” David nods slowly. “Then why— no, nevermind.” David shakes his head. “Okay.”

“I can take care of these things now,” Casey says gently. “I can do it. It’s not perfect, maybe, but it works. Alright?”

David nods once. “But I live in a place with three other guys who are always hungry. It’s second nature for me to bring enough food into a room for everyone, to offer a snack. I’m not going to always remember _not_ to do that, you know?”

“I know,” Casey says. “And sometimes I’ll say no, I don’t want any, and you have to let me do that, okay?”

“Yeah,” David says, still nodding slowly. “If— If I’m with you and an alarm goes off and you ignore it, what do you want me to do?”

“If it’s just one and it’s just sometimes?” Casey says. “Um. You could offer me cookies, I guess. But really, they’re set every two hours, David. Sometimes the alarm goes off, and I think about it, and I really am not hungry.” He shrugs. “If it’s just one and it’s just sometimes.”

“And if it’s not just one, or not just sometimes?”

“If you see something not right, and you think you need to say something, you should say something,” Casey says. “I know that sometimes I don’t realize that something’s wrong.”

“Okay.” David nods, seemingly satisfied, and picks up a handful of chips himself.

“I have to manage it,” Casey says, holding his hand out in the direction of the chips and waving it a little, since David set them slightly too far away. “It’s my job. It can’t be your job. Except handing me chips can be your job.”

David snorts and pushes the chips towards Casey. “Yeah, okay.”

“So, _now_ can we watch the movie? They did a really weird thing with Loki’s hair and I want to make fun of it.”

 

**[2007–2008 — Casey]**

Nobody really bothers Casey at school at first. He should be an easy target, but he probably goes unnoticed a lot longer than most smaller kids, because he can make himself invisible. Not actually invisible, which would be cool and really useful, but just completely beneath anyone’s notice. He knows how to be quiet and still, and how to smile in a way that’s enough to make people think he’s doing what he’s supposed to be doing, but not big enough to attract attention.

He doesn’t make a lot of friends—he doesn’t play on any sports teams, he’s not allowed to go to sleepovers, and he can’t exactly bring anyone home—but he gets along well with just about everyone. He’s never the source of conflict in a group, never disagrees with anyone, but also never vocally sides too hard with any one side. His elementary school experience is almost the definition of flying under the radar, because nobody notices anything about him at all, and that’s what protects him.

Then middle school happens and everything changes. It’s not enough to be quiet and still anymore, especially not when his bus route changes part way into sixth grade and Micah Fordham and his older brother start riding Casey’s bus. Apparently, a fifteen minute bus ride is boring enough that the Fordham brothers need entertainment, and Casey’s previous survival methods of sitting alone and quiet don’t protect him anymore.

It starts off fairly benign, with paper footballs flicked in his direction. Casey continues using the method that has worked best so far—sit quietly and don’t complain, keep smiling, but not too big a smile—while the paper triangles bounce off the back of his head and the side of his face. When they fail to get a reaction out of him, though, Micah moves to the seat behind Casey’s and starts flicking him in the back of the head. Casey does his best not to flinch or respond for the rest of the ride to school, hoping that Micah and his brother will lose interest before the bus ride home.

Now Casey’s caught their attention, though, so on the ride home, Micah goes ahead and sits behind Casey, flicking him until he finally slouches down low in the seat. Then Micah and his brother snicker, and as Casey gets off the bus at his stop, “See you tomorrow, wuss.”

He does see Casey tomorrow, and every day after that for the rest of the school year, and it quickly spreads from bus-only to anywhere Micah can catch Casey without an adult around to notice. Casey learns quickly that not responding to Micah’s taunts and the whacks and flicks to the head doesn’t make them stop. Sometimes a yelp or other exclamation is feedback enough to satisfy Micah, though not always, and Casey goes home with skinned knees and hands on a regular basis, but he doesn’t ever give Micah the satisfaction of seeing him cry. He waits until the bus pulls away.

Casey knows better than to say anything about it at home, he really does, but one day Mick is already home when Casey comes in, the knee of his jeans torn open and his knee bloody from Micah shoving him in the bus line. He’s sniffling a little, though not really crying.

“What are you crying about?” Mick demands, barely turning his face from the television to glance in Casey’s direction.

Casey shakes his head and rubs his nose with the back of his hand. “I’m not crying,” he says.

“Sounds like you’re crying. What’s the matter, crybaby? Somebody hurt your feelings?”  
Mick taunts, almost sounding good-natured. Casey can tell the exact moment that Mick notices the hole in the knee of his jeans, because his eyes narrow and his tone shifts to something more dangerous. “What’d you do to your pants?”

“I got pushed down,” Casey says. “A kid that rides on my bus.”

“Jesus Christ,” Mick says, disgust in his voice. “Amy’s turning you into a goddamn fairy. Can’t stand up for yourself for shit, and now you tore up your clothes. Money doesn’t grow on trees, Casey O’Brien.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” Casey answers, trying to keep the right mix of respectful enough, but strong enough. Once again, he doesn’t get it right.

“Come here,” Mick says. “Get your ass over here _now_.” Casey does what Mick says, and goes to stand next to Mick’s chair. Mick pops him in the mouth and says, “Don’t you come in here with your clothes torn up again.”

Casey can taste blood in his mouth, but he nods. “I won’t.”

“Now get the hell out of my sight,” Mick says, turning back to his television.

Casey does, hurrying back to his bedroom. The next time Micah pushes him down at school, Casey catches himself with his hands, instead of his knees—band-aids are a lot cheaper than jeans—and he doesn’t cry. He doesn’t cry next year, either, when Micah and his new friend Luke take turns tripping him in P.E. all year, and calling him “faggot” and “pussy” when he falls. He doesn’t cry, and he doesn’t tell anyone, and by the end of seventh grade, he’s burning himself at least once a week with Mick’s cigarettes, but he doesn’t ruin another pair of jeans. 

 

**Friday, June 20th, 2014: Lakeview, Ohio — Dave**

The drive to Indian Lake State Park is less than an hour, and since they aren’t actually sleeping in a tent, it doesn’t take long to get set up. Dave gets a fire going, they cook their food on sticks over the fire, and then Dave puts it out properly before the two of them climb up into the bed of the truck, lying on their sleeping bags. 

“See? This is great!” Dave says enthusiastically. “There’s already stars over there, and we can see the last of the sunset.”

“I’ve been bitten by at least thirty-seven mosquitos,” Casey says. “I remain unconvinced.”

“Did you actually put on the bug spray?” Dave asks. “That stuff’s supposed to keep the mosquitoes away for five hours or something.”

“Um.”

“Case!” Dave groans. “It doesn’t work if it’s still in the can.”

“It smelled weird!” Casey argues. “And I put it on one arm and it kind of burned.”

“So you’re saying _I_ smell weird?” Dave can’t resist asking.

“I’m not saying you _don’t_ smell weird.”

Dave shakes his head. “I knew it. I’m going to wake up and find myself on an air mattress in the lake, aren’t I?”

“David, I would never do that!” Casey says, then he laughs. “Mostly because there’s no way I could drag you all the way to the lake.”

“Also I didn’t bring an air mattress, just in case,” Dave says, grinning. “Oh, but hey, look over there.” He points towards the east. “I can’t remember all the names of the constellations, though.”

“There’s more stars than I thought there’d be,” Casey says, settling himself on his sleeping bag and taking Dave’s hand. 

“No light pollution.” Dave shakes his head and squeezes Casey’s hand. “Trust me, you won’t see anywhere near this many in Atlanta. More like you see some airplane lights and think they’re stars for a few seconds.”

“Airplane lights can be nice, too.”

“They don’t make constellations, though.” Dave pauses. “Or, well, if they do, there’s probably an issue of some kind. But now you can say you’ve been camping, anyway.”

“Well, camping _was_ the only thing I was missing in my life,” Casey says.

“And now,” Dave says grandiosely, “your life is complete.”

“Oh, definitely,” Casey agrees. “Angels are going to swoop down and carry me away to… the deity of your choosing. Because my life is complete.”

“Swing low, sweet chariot,” Dave deadpans.

Casey moves closer and puts his head on Dave’s shoulder, still looking up at the sky. “There. Now I can see the stars better.”

“I still don’t remember the constellations,” Dave confesses quietly.

“That’s okay,” Casey says. “We’ll make up new ones.”

 

**[2007–2008 — Dave]**

"Don't forget to call at least once," Paul jokes as he starts to leave, and Dave rolls his eyes.

"I'm going to be in eighth grade, Dad," Dave says. "I'll be fine for three weeks, Dad. Three weeks of hockey." The truth is that Dave has been looking forward to these three weeks of the summer since Paul sent in the registration, back in February. For three weeks, he's going to live and breathe hockey, and the quicker Paul leaves, the quicker that can start.

On the first night, they're grouped into teams, and everyone on Dave's team wants to be friends with Eric before lunch the next day. Dave sits next to Eric at dinner that night and breakfast the next day, and when they have free time on the third day, Eric comes to Dave's room to hang out with Dave and his roommate. They don't hang out every day, and Dave doesn't always sit by Eric at meals, but they're friends, and Dave is 'one of Eric's group', which makes his chest feel warm for some reason.

Halfway through the camp session, Eric definitely seems to prefer Nolan and his roommate over Dave and his, but he's still nice to everyone on the team, and on the last day of camp, Dave and Eric exchange phone numbers and email addresses. They even email back and forth for awhile, but as eighth grade gets busier and busier as September becomes October, the emails get more and more infrequent, and by the time hockey season starts in earnest, neither of them are emailing much.

Dave's telling a story about hockey camp in February, trying to convince a couple of his teammates to go with him, especially since they'll be trying out for the McKinley team in the autumn.

"You sure do talk a ton about Eric," one of the guys comments, then the subject changes, and Dave just frowns.

He's quiet on the drive home, Paul asking if anything's wrong a few times before giving up and letting Dave stare out the window. Dave sighs to himself and tries not to think about what was said. He might talk a lot about Eric, but Eric was his friend. It's normal to talk about your friends, and want to be around your friends, even if Dave can't remember feeling about another friend the way he felt—and still feels, a little—about Eric.

Dave isn't sure what that means, isn't sure what his teammate was implying, and more than anything, he isn't sure he likes what it could all add up to.

 

**Saturday, June 28th, 2014: Dayton, Ohio — Casey**

“You sure Karofsky didn’t want to come?” Taylor asks. “Should be fun. Since Lionel’s gone, I even got them to make sure and talk about the impact of trans people on the original Stonewall riots. Of course, I doubt anyone’s reading the walls during the party, but.”

“I asked him, but he said no,” Casey says, shrugging one shoulder. “I knew he’d say no.”

“Too bad.” Taylor shrugs. “Barely seen you since school let out. Working a lot?”

“No. Same,” Casey says. “Just, you know. David.”

Taylor nods. “Well, I mean, twenty hours is still more than I’m working, so maybe I would call that a lot,” he says with a grin.

“It’s not so bad. It’s just three days out of a week,” Casey says. “Maci keeps asking questions about you and trying to get me to talk to you about her. I told her maybe she should have made better Bud Light-related choices.”

“Or she could call me herself?” Taylor laughs. “It’s not like I blocked her number or anything.”

“I don’t understand why girls do what they do,” Casey says. “Rick says Alicia passes messages to him through other people, too, and they’ve been together forever.”

“I still can’t believe he was proposing,” Taylor says with a shake of his head. “I mean, we’re not back in 1953 suddenly, are we?”

“Not as far as I know,” Casey answers. “Unless we time traveled. In which case, I guess it’s possible, but still not probable.”

“Yeah, probably not,” Taylor agrees. “So that was just crazy.” He shakes his head. “I’ll send Maci a message on Facebook or something.”

“Okay, that’s good. Then she can stop bugging me.” Casey props his arm along the window and looks out at the road. “Did you ever write to Kate?”

“Sort of.” Taylor shifts in his seat and shrugs. “I wrote something, but then I just never mailed it, you know?”

“She doesn’t write back, anyway,” Casey says. “So…”

“Yeah, I kinda figured,” Taylor says quietly. “Don’t know that I blame her.”

“Yeah, me either. I just send postcards with weird pictures on them, anyway. I guess I’ll send her one from Atlanta once I go down there. Maybe with peaches or something.”

“Are there really peach trees on every corner?” Taylor asks. “That’d be pretty awesome.”

“No, not really, but every intersection has a Peachtree,” Casey explains. “Street names. All the street names.”

“That’s even weirder!”

“David says everybody still manages to find their way around. I’m not sure if that’s true, though, or if he’s just saying that so I don’t worry about getting lost.”

“Wouldn’t we hear about it if Atlanta had a big problem with missing people?” Taylor says. “I mean, they’ve got the CDC down there, if people went missing, there’d be talk about conspiracies.”

“They _do_ have this big interstate that goes around the whole city,” Casey says. “I suspect people might get on there sometimes and just never stop circling.”

“That sounds like one of those dystopian hells.” Taylor purses his lips. “No, really.”

“Maybe I’ll stay off that interstate.”

 

**[December 2005–December 2006 — Casey]**

When Casey is nine years old, he falls madly in love—or, at least, madly in _crush_ —with Peter Pevensie from _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_. He doesn’t realize that’s what it is at the time. He just knows that he can’t stop thinking about Peter Pevensie.

The O’Briens don’t go to movies often, but somehow, Casey finagles Amy into taking him to see it twice at the regular movie theater. When Mick finds out, he belts Amy across the face with the back of his hand and takes away the ten dollar bill she gets at the start of every week to pay for her lunch. Casey sneaks the four dollars and seventy-five cents in quarters that he’s been hiding in his sock drawer into her purse, but he doesn’t tell her that he’s sorry, and when _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_ hits the dollar theater, he uses the two dollar bills he’s been hiding to see it two more times.

Casey reads all the books, then he reads them again, and he always pictures Peter Pevensie looking exactly like he does in the movies, golden and tall and strong. He makes up little stories in his head about Peter Pevensie when he can’t sleep. He carefully tears the full-color _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_ ad from a magazine in the urgent care waiting room while he and Amy are waiting for someone to call him back to get stitches in his hand.

When he gets home, he tapes the picture up to the side of his bookcase, between the drawing of himself and Peter Pevensie riding a lion and the drawing of himself and Peter Pevensie fighting the White Witch. Mick doesn’t think much of Casey’s drawings as a whole, but he says he’d rather Casey draw battle scenes than houses and animals like some little sissy.  
Casey does _not_ tape up the drawing of himself and Peter Pevensie holding hands while with the talking animals of Narnia, but Mick finds it anyway. He balls it up and throws it in the trash, then he rips the _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_ ad off Casey’s bookcase and throws it in the trash, too.

The next time Casey mentions Peter Pevensie, Mick backhands him. “I’ve heard enough about that little English fairy,” Mick says. “That movie’s for girls.”

Casey doesn’t talk about Peter Pevensie anymore. By his birthday in March, Casey has moved on to other things, new books and new things to draw, and he doesn’t really think much about Peter Pevensie, not until that December.

As long as he’s quiet and doesn’t move or draw Mick’s attention, Casey can stay up as late as he wants watching television, as long as he’s willing to sit and watch whatever Mick has on, which is usually a mix of reality television, Fox News, and procedural police shows. One day in December, Mick is watching an episode of _Cold Case_ about two police officers in the 1960s. Casey sits on the floor, just out of Mick’s line of sight, sketching a little in a notebook and halfway watching the episode.

Mick seems to be in a good mood, drinking his beer and even laughing a little at the flashback in the police station. Later on, though, the two police officers get into a fist fight, and then the blond one kisses the dark-haired one. Casey sets his pencil down to watch, and then the dark-haired officer kisses the blond one back. Casey has never seen two men kissing before; it’s nice, even if it would have been nicer without the punching first.

“Aw, what the hell is this?” Mick yells, and then throws his empty beer can at the television. “Can’t even watch my goddamn shows anymore without seeing a couple of fags kissing.”

Casey flinches and gets smaller, wills himself to be so small that Mick won’t remember he’s sitting there. It doesn’t work this time. Mick must notice Casey moving, or Casey must make some kind of noise, because Mick turns and shouts, “What are you doing out of bed? You get back in your room. You don’t need to be watching this shit and getting ideas.”

Casey doesn't tell Mick that he hadn't been to bed to begin with, and he definitely doesn't tell Mick that he already has ideas, and that those ideas are that he might be exactly what Mick called those police officers on the television: fags. Because if that's what it means for two men to kiss each other instead of girls, that's what Casey is, because he doesn't ever want to kiss girls, but kissing someone like Peter Pevensie some day might be kind of nice.

 

**Thursday, July 3rd, 2014: Lima, Ohio — Dave**

“I’d join the swim team, too, if it meant I got to float around,” Dave says with a grin at Casey.

“Competitive floating should definitely be an event,” Casey agrees. “We should get right on that. We have to specify floating on _floats_ , though, or I’d be really bad at it.”

“Right.” Dave nods. “But it might increase participation. They should think of the children.”

“I don’t want to think of the children. At least, not the children in the pool,” Casey says. “Children are the worst in the pool. When they get water in their noses, they cry.”

“Nah, we just tell the people in charge to think about them, not us,” Dave explains. “We just float on.”

“Like jellyfish.”

“I wanted to be a stingray,” Dave says, frowning exaggeratedly. “Can I be a stingray?”

“No. You can be, hmm. Oh, I know! You can be a flying fish!” Casey says. “So you have two optional modes of travel.”

“Case. You just casually and cruelly shot down my dream of being a stingray,” Dave says, barely keeping a straight face.

“If it’s _that_ important to you, I _guess_ you can be a stingray,” Casey concedes. “Maybe they can fly a little bit, too. They sort of look like they can fly.”

“They’ll call me Dave Stingray. Or maybe Stingray K.”

“No, I really think they shouldn’t do that, David.”

“The real question is, if I’m a stingray – does that provide any help with the crab problem?”

“Do stingrays eat crabs?” Casey asks. He paddles his feet in the water to spin his float in a circle. “I’ll look it up when I’m out of the pool.”

“No clue. _I_ eat crabs.”

“But not live ones and not ones with faces.”

“All-you-can-eat crab legs,” Dave counters, grinning.

“All _you_ can eat,” Casey says. “I can’t eat that many crab legs. Too much work.”

“Last time we got crab legs, we put Danny to work cracking them. He’s really fast at it. So that cuts down on the work.” Dave shrugs. “But they have another night for all-you-can-eat shrimp, and those shrimp don’t have faces or need to be peeled, so maybe that’d work better.”

“Yes! More shrimp, less work, no faces!”

Dave laughs. “Exactly. But seafood’s not that close to campus. For every day food, you’re going to have to make do with the Varsity. Think you can manage?”

“I’m going to live inside a frosted orange thing,” Casey says. “It’ll be sticky, but I’ll find a way to get by.”

“Many straws?” Dave suggests.

“That’s what I’ll sleep on. Raft made of straws, inside my giant cup of frosted orange.”

“Case, I think we’ve reached the point of the summer where we’ve descended to the absurd. I’m going to be a stingray and you’re going to live in a frosted orange.”

“Must be July,” Casey says. “Now we just have to decide what we’re doing about that 5K tomorrow that Aunt Shannon thinks we should do.”

“We can tell her we’re saving our energy to do the Peachtree next year in Atlanta?” Dave suggests. “It’s a 10K.”

“No, she’d just say we should do the 5K for training,” Casey says. “I think we should agree to participate, but instead of running, we should meander the 5K.”

“See, I could argue that I overslept and missed the start time,” Dave says, “but you’d have to make Coach oversleep to pull that one off.”

“We’ll _stroll_ the 5K. Oh, or we could lollygag it!”

“We could mosey down the course,” Dave says, straight-faced.

“Agreed,” Casey says with a nod. “Excellent plan. A 5K mosey.”

“Hey, you still get a free T-shirt that way!”

“It’s all about the T-shirt, David.”

 

**[May 2006 — Dave]**

"Your father had his meeting in Cincinnati run late," Elaine tells Dave when he gets home from school, and Dave shrugs.

"Okay, Mom. Is he staying there?"

"Just for tonight. He'll be back before you get done with school tomorrow, though, and you and he are still going to that _Mission: Impossible_ movie tomorrow night."

Dave nods and heads up to his room, pretending to have more homework than he really does. They've only got a month of school left, and Dave's pretty sure he's ready for sixth grade to be over. He can't wait for the summer and hockey camp.

That night, he wakes up to get some water from the bathroom and can hear his mom in the living room, doing something with paper or books, but he shrugs and goes back to sleep. He's woken up the next morning not by his alarm but by Elaine, shaking him hurriedly.

"We overslept, David! Hurry and get dressed and meet me in the car, I'll get you breakfast at McDonald's, how does that sound?"

"Sure!" Dave agrees, grabbing his jeans and getting dressed really fast before running to the car. Elaine drives to McDonald's and Dave orders two Egg McMuffins and a cinnamon roll, and he grins at Elaine as they drive up to the school.

"Have a good day at school, David," Elaine says, suddenly serious.

"I will, Mom."

"You'll ride the bus home?"

"Yep. Bye, Mom!" Dave climbs out of the car and waves over his shoulder, heading towards his locker.

When Dave gets home from school, no one's home, which doesn't surprise him. He gets a snack from the kitchen and goes into the living room, and realizes that there's stuff missing. Some books, some DVDs, and he starts to wonder if they've been robbed. The television and the DVD player are still there, though, and the computer, so Dave just frowns and heads to the bedrooms.

Everything in his bedroom is just like he left it. All of his video games, his computer, and his CDs are all there. He peeks in his parents' bedroom and gapes. Drawers are open and empty, the closet is half empty, and his mom's suitcases are gone.

Dave walks back to his room, snack still in his hand, and he sits down on his bed. That's what his mom was doing in the living room. She was packing. She took her stuff. That's why she didn't want Dave to do anything but head straight to school. Dave's not stupid, even though people look at how big he is and the fact that he plays hockey and just assume he's in the dumbest classes. His mom _left_.

After ten minutes, Dave picks up the phone and dials his dad's work number.

"Hi, David, I'll be home for the movie, don't worry!" Paul says cheerfully.

"Dad… I think Mom _left_ ," Dave whispers, like saying it louder will make it more true.

Paul doesn't say anything for a really long time, and then he sighs loudly. "I was afraid she was going to leave," he admits, "but I didn't think she'd do it this way. I'll be home as soon as I can, Dave. Don't worry."

Dave isn't worried, though. He's confused and upset and wonders why two Egg McMuffins was an appropriate way to say 'goodbye'. Dave knows people whose parents are divorced that have visits with their parents regularly, but Dave is pretty sure that's not the kind of leaving that his mom did.

His mom didn't just leave his dad, his mom left _him_ , Dave, too. She packed her things and none of the missing things were pictures of Dave or anything about Dave. Just like that, she left him behind, and Dave knows he won't see her again. 

 

**Thursday, July 17th, 2014: Lima, Ohio — Casey**

Casey finally manages to talk David into letting him put the tiniest bit of vanilla syrup into the iced latte David ordered, with a twofold argument that it’s not enough flavoring to actually make the drink flavored and that David likes vanilla milkshakes.

“Is that really the same, though?” David keeps halfheartedly arguing. “I mean, wouldn’t the comparison be a coffee-vanilla milkshake?”

“Oh hush and drink your excellent coffee,” Casey says.

“Is that customer making trouble for you, Casey?” Ms. Horatio asks with a wink in David’s direction.

“Yes, he’s belligerent. We should toss him,” Casey says. “Well, you should toss him. I can’t pick him up.”

“We could work together,” Ms. Horatio offers. “Or grab a passing EMT for an assist.”

“I bet they have tranquilizers in there somewhere,” Casey says, gesturing out at the rest of the hospital. “Drug him and drag him.”

“Just throwing me to the wolves, Case?” David says, grinning.

“David, I’d never do that,” Casey says. “Besides, there’s no wolves in Lima. I’d have to throw you to the stray dogs that hang out in the park.”

“You could put me in the Lemon and take me across the border to Canada, though. Pretty sure they have wolves in Canada. The Mounties keep ’em as pets or something.”

“We could, um. Gamble! And catch moose,” Casey suggests. “Maybe something to do with maple syrup? What else do they have in Canada?”

“They have a maple syrup reserve, actually,” David says. “Few years back, someone stole a bunch of it. What kind of country needs a reserve of maple syrup for national defense?”

“One made out of waffles?”

“I pledge allegiance to the Eggo?” David laughs. “I guess it could happen.”

“I think their national anthem has something about Eggos in it, maybe,” Casey says. “It’s possible. Or else I just made that up, which seems more likely.”

“We’ll watch the Olympics closely next time. Though I guess we missed that opportunity back in the winter.” David shrugs. 

“There’s nothing in the winter Olympics that I really care about, anyway,” Casey says. 

“You mean you didn’t tune in breathlessly awaiting the night’s installment of ice dancing?” David asks, clearly trying not to smirk. 

“Um. No. I’m going to go with no.”

“I’ll ask Coach to make sure. You have fun yesterday?”

“Oh. Yes, it was fun,” Casey says. He doesn’t mention that the primary activity of the evening was sitting around and smoking pot with Rick, Miles, Taylor, and Tucker. Since he’s never exactly mentioned the pot smoking to David, and since he also pointedly doesn’t talk about Miles to David, there isn’t too much he can add. “Alicia wasn’t there.”

“Well, that may or may not have been her loss?” David shrugs. 

“Yes, she was out with,” Casey lowers his voice so Ms. Horatio can’t hear him, “Maci.”

David looks thoughtful, like he’s not sure where he’d come down on the issue. “Probably her loss, then,” he finally says. 

“They either need to do whatever they’re going to do, or I need to go to Atlanta so I don’t have to hear about it from both sides,” Casey says, definitively. 

“Both might actually be the better option,” David points out.

“Maybe so. I’m sure I don’t know these things,” Casey says. “It might not be better for Taylor. Probably would be an improvement for Maci, though, at least over just talking about Taylor all the time.”

“Then again, Atlanta might not be that great of an improvement,” David muses. “If Coop decides he’s pathetically dateless and in need of a date, we won’t hear anything else for a week at least.”

“At least I probably won’t work with Coop,” Casey offers, shrugging. “Or with girls who want to date him. So it’s different pathetic datelessness, at least.”

“Don’t say that too loudly,” David laughs. “You might have jinxed yourself.”

“If Coop comes to me with woman trouble, I’ll just lie on the ground and yell ‘I’m gay!’” Casey says. “I might cry.”

“Maybe one of those small rainbow flags? You could wave it frantically in his direction.”

“A huge rainbow flag, so I can hide under it.”

“Multipurpose.” David nods. “I like it.”

“I have excellent ideas. You should keep them in mind for the future,” Casey says. “Now, do you want more iced latte or can I make you the new frozen thing I invented?”

David shrugs. “You can make it. Just don’t get mad if I don’t drink very much!”

“Oh, I know! I can make it, and then you can guess what’s in it. Won’t that be fun, David?”

David looks alarmed. “Well. It’ll pass the time.”

 

**[2010 — Dave]**

Dave scowls to himself as he walks down the hall. The fucking fairy, always looking just _wrong_. Fox tails and plaid shirts with dog-collar studs and ties or bowties even when he doesn't have to wear one. He's all showtunes and fashion, strutting down the hallways, and Dave _hates_ it.

Even if Dave is gay—and maybe he's not, maybe he's just a late bloomer, like his dad says, like the ladies at church have said—he's not like that. He's not going to wear ties voluntarily, ever, and no tails or other weird things in the name of fashion. He's not sure what makes something a showtune but he knows he doesn't listen to them.

Every day that Hummel walks around McKinley, the rage builds in Dave's chest. He feels more and more like he's not the one in control of his actions. He needs Hummel to be less visible. He needs Hummel to disappear. He needs the questions in his own head to go away. He needs Azimio to stop using the word 'fag', just in case the questions in his head don't go away. He needs to know, one way or another, what this means.

Dave Karofsky needs answers. He can't stand the limbo that he's living in, even if no one else sees it. His dad doesn't notice anything, barely even comments on the fact that Dave's playing football again, for the first time in years, leaving hockey behind despite the years in middle school. Az doesn't notice how Dave sometimes flinches at the word 'fag'. Even Hummel doesn't notice him to flinch unless Dave feints towards him or says something. Dave feels invisible, stuck inside his own personal hell.

When Hummel follows him into the locker room—the locker room, the one place Dave feels safe, where he can just do dude things and ignore everything else, as long as no one named Puckerman struts around naked—Dave sees red. He's tired of everything, tired of not knowing, and he grabs Hummel and kisses him.

That's almost what he needs, almost all the information, and Dave can't control himself, stretching out to repeat the kiss, when Hummel pushes at him and runs away.

Dave still doesn't know.

But now Hummel's still walking through the halls, still angering Dave, but now he has a secret of Dave's, some idea of Dave's questions, and if Hummel opens his mouth— Dave can't take that chance.

 

**Wednesday, July 30th, 2014: Lima, Ohio — Dave**

Faurot Park is mostly deserted. It’s too late in the summer for baseball, too early for fall baseball or any other sport, so Dave and Casey are lying in the grass near a few trees, milkshakes beside them. 

“Why did we have to run through the fountain again?” Dave asks.

“Because it was _there_ , David!” Casey says. “Plus, it’s hot.”

“Hot’s why we got the milkshakes,” Dave says. “I thought, anyway.”

“I didn’t know we were only allowed to do one thing about the heat,” Casey says. “You have to warn me about these things, or I might have come up with a third thing, even.”

“Oops. Sorry,” Dave says, not sounding apologetic at all. “So, Casey. This could be the last July thirtieth you spend in Lima, Ohio. Are you devastated?” he asks in a journalist’s voice, or at least what approximates one.

“Yes. I don’t know how I’ll recover,” Casey says in a flat voice. “Oh, wait, I know. I’ll recover by _not being in Lima_.” He nudges Dave’s foot with his. “I’ll miss a few people, but I won’t miss Lima.”

“Yeah.” Dave nods. “I can understand that.”

“Most of the good parts of Lima won’t be here much longer, anyway, so all that’ll be left is the bad parts.” Casey sighs quietly. “There’s a lot of bad parts.”

Dave snorts. “Yeah. Not much left to recommend it.”

Casey rotates on the grass until he’s perpendicular to Dave, resting his head on Dave’s stomach and tucking his milkshake between Dave’s arm and body. “There, more comfortable.”

“Making me be the one to get itchy from the grass. Clever, Case.”

“I’m superbly clever.”

“I didn’t say _that_ precisely,” Dave says with a laugh. “Trying to put words in my mouth, I see.”

“Yes. Pretty much that,” Casey agrees. 

“I’m going to have to start recording our conversations for later playback, in case you misquote me to others.”

“Which obviously I do all the time.”

“Exactly! And the recordings won’t at all eat up my hard drive space, or any online storage.” Dave laughs. “Right?”

“This plan has absolutely no flaws at all, David,” Casey says, then he starts to laugh. 

“It’s down to my stellar planning abilities,” Dave decides, managing to get through the sentence before laughing again. 

Casey closes his eyes and sighs again. “This has been the best summer,” he says, sounding sleepy. “I can’t think of a better summer.”

 

**[2004–2012 — Casey]**

Casey has had seven broken bones—well, seven _diagnosed_ broken bones—including the broken rib and fractured cheekbone from _Monday_. He broke two fingers and one of the bones in his left hand, sustained at least one broken nose, and fractured his right wrist, all between the ages of eight and fifteen. He got six stitches across the heel of his hand the winter before his tenth birthday. He sprained both wrists at least once and had his elbow dislocated – it’s called “nursemaid’s elbow.” Over the course of these injuries, he was treated in two separate urgent cares, by multiple pediatricians, and, finally, by the staff of the St. Rita’s emergency room. These are the documented injuries.

Between third and tenth grade, he averaged six absences per school year. One year, it was as few as three. In seventh grade, he missed seventeen days of school. The excuse notes Amy sent in read, with no exception, “Please excuse Casey O’Brien from school. He was sick.” Only four of those absences were actually due to illnesses; he usually went to school when he was sick. A more honest and accurate note would have read, “Please excuse Casey O’Brien from school. He had a black eye, split lip, swollen nose, or some other overly visible injury,” but Casey learned the dangers of honesty very early.

While Casey hates his freckles and would happily trade them and his hair for pretty much _any_ other coloring, he has to admit that freckles do serve one very valuable purpose. When people look at him, they see freckles, not scars. They don’t notice the scar across his cheek from Mick’s ring, or the multiple small white lines from busted lips, or the squiggly pink line on his palm. Unless they know to look, they might not even notice the scars on his inner arm right away.

Nobody really noticed much of anything. Not the breaks, the scars, the absences. Nobody noticed, or if they did, they didn’t ask questions. Nobody noticed or cared until David. It was easy to keep lying and hiding and covering things up until David, and then it just… wasn’t, anymore. It got harder and harder to keep it a secret, because David _noticed_.

There’s probably something important to say about that, how it took fifteen years for anybody to notice at all, and when someone did, that person noticed _everything_ , but even almost three years later, Casey’s not precisely sure what the something to say might be. He just silently calls it “love” and waits for the timing to be right enough for him to say it out loud again. 

 

**Saturday, August 2nd, 2014: Interstate 75 Southbound — Casey**

Casey presses the button on the side of the walkie-talkie. “Breaker, breaker. This is Casey, over.”

David glances at him quickly. “Case, we’re not in an eighteen-wheeler.”

“Don’t ruin my truckdriving experience!” Casey says, then Monty’s voice comes out of the walkie-talkie.

“Are we almost ready to stop for lunch?” Monty asks.

“You’re not driving!” David points out.

“Fine. My truck _riding_ experience,” Casey corrects himself, then holds down the button again. “South of Cincinnati is good, I think?”

“I’ll consult with Shannon,” Monty says. “Over.”

“Wherever we stop, I want coffee,” Casey says, setting down the walkie-talkie. “And fries.”

“Usually not a premade combo,” David says wryly. “But probably doable.”

The walkie-talkie crackles a few times, and then Monty says, “Shannon thinks there’s a Cracker Barrel in Florence. Acceptable?”

“Cracker Barrel?” Casey asks David. “They have candy.”

“Are you trying to convince me or yourself?” David asks. “Sure, Cracker Barrel’s fine.”

Casey looks at David and grins widely as he holds the walkie-talkie up and presses the button. “Ten-four, Uncle Monty.”

“Excellent!” Monty responds. “Now, your Aunt Shannon says I have to, and I quote, ‘put that darned thing down’, so we’ll see you in Florence.”

“Okay. I think David probably wants me to put the darned thing down, too,” Casey says. “See you there.” He sets the walkie-talkie on the seat next to him. 

“Coach and I knew we were tempting fate with those things,” David says.

“They’re great, aren’t they?” Casey asks, still smiling at David. “Maybe they’ll let me keep them down in Atlanta. I could give one to Danny.”

“This has the imprint of a bad plan on it, I think,” David says, chuckling. “But I suppose you can ask.”

“Maybe I can just hide it in different places in your dorm, and then you’ll hear my voice and be confused,” Casey says. “That could be fun.”

“I think we’re back to Danny, at least as far as who would be confused.”

“You’re sure they don’t mind?” Casey asks. “About me staying there.”

“Yeah, it’s cool,” David assures him. “Trust me.”

“I’ll stay out of everybody’s way.”

“You’ll be fine,” David says, grinning. “We’ll be the ones out of your way, anyway, with practice.”

“We’ll all stay out of each other’s ways, except when it’s time for meals,” Casey says. “Or movies.”

“We need a third thing. Meals, movies, and…”

“Does it have to start with M?”

“I suppose it doesn’t have to,” David concedes.

“That’s probably good. I wasn’t coming up with anything that started with M,” Casey says, though he mentally tacks on _that I can say out loud in this truck._ “So how about, um. Hmm. Meals, movies, and walkie-talkies with Danny.”

David laughs. “Sure. That sounds good. Florence, you said?”

“Yes. Florence.”

David drives them through Cincinnati, over an absolutely terrifying bridge, and then into Kentucky. Before much longer, Casey sees a large, striped water tower rising on the right. 

“Florence Y’all,” Casey reads from the water tower. “Well, I guess we’re in the South now, David.”

David laughs. “Yeah, I guess we are.”

 

**[February 2012 — Dave]**

Dave has always thought Valentine's Day was a bit of a joke. Elaine always talked about the beautiful roses Paul bought her, gushing about whatever restaurant that Paul took her to on Valentine's Day, and look how that turned out? Dave's watched couples at school over the years, too, and he was pretty sure that the glee club had the right idea, calling it the 'Bad Romance' dance.

When he gets done with dual enrollment classes on Valentine's Day, Dave goes back to McKinley and lifts some weights before going home and trying to do his homework. His mind churns, running in a cycle between replaying the recent events with Casey, getting worked up and angry about them, and then trying to analyze them. It keeps repeating as Dave looks at his English and then psychology, and finally Dave heads downstairs to the kitchen, looking for a snack. He's glad Paul went out with a couple of friends of his that are also single, because Dave knows his footsteps are too loud as he heads down the stairs, stuck in the angry portion of the cycle. Paul would listen, but Dave isn't sure he's ready to talk.

Dave stands at the counter, spoon moving between the bowl and his mouth, and he has to put the bowl down. He freezes, spoon still in hand, his mind abruptly jumping from angry to analysis, and the thought floats across.

_I'm in love with him._

He keeps standing there, then nods slowly. "Oh," he says out loud. "Oh. I am." It's a little startling – somehow Dave never pictured himself being in love. But it's true; he is in love with Casey. He sets the spoon back in the bowl and sits down at the kitchen table. He doesn't know what he's supposed to do with that knowledge, either, except for continuing to acknowledge the truth of it, at least to himself, deep down. 

 

**Saturday, August 2nd, 2014: Interstate 75 Southbound — Dave**

The stretch of I–75 between Lexington and Knoxville is never Dave’s favorite part of the trip between Lima and Atlanta or Atlanta and Lima, sparsely populated as it is, but it is better during the daylight, at least. Not long outside of Lexington, Casey apparently gets bored with the walkie-talkies and shortly thereafter is sacked out in the truck. Dave shakes his head. At least the lap belt’s still on. 

Dave drives another thirty minutes before he starts tapping the wheel, and then he reaches down and tugs on a piece of Casey’s hair. Casey curls up into a tighter ball on the seat, but doesn’t otherwise respond. Dave smothers a laugh and tugs on the same piece again, then makes it brush against Casey’s cheek. Casey’s hand comes up and swats at his own face, then drops back to the seat. 

The truck rolls over the border into Tennessee before Dave picks up a piece of hair and does it again, this time leaving his hand poised to brush against the back of Casey’s when it comes up. When the piece of hair touches the back of Casey’s hand, Casey yelps and swats at his face again, and his eyes fly open.

“Spider!” Casey exclaims. 

“No spiders in the truck,” Dave says calmly, hoping Casey doesn’t wonder why Dave’s hand is sort of awkwardly dangling off the back of the seats. 

“There was a spider,” Casey says, sounding half-awake and confused. “Or some other kind of insect.”

“Must’ve just been a dream, Case.”

“Oh. Hmm. Okay.” Casey rubs his eyes, but doesn’t sit up. “I fell asleep?”

“Yeah, you’ve been out for at least an hour. We’re in Tennessee now.”

“Oh. Okay,” Casey says. “But no spiders?”

“No spiders,” Dave assures him. “No bugs at all.”

“That’s good, then. How much longer until we stop again?” Casey stretches and rubs his head against the side of Dave’s leg. “Where’d my candy go?”

“Still in the bag in the floor. And when we stop’s up to you and Monty, I guess, but we’re about five hours away.”

Casey nods. “Did you win the license plate game while I was sleep?”

“Nah.” Dave had, in fact, forgotten about the license plate game. “There’s still time for you to win.”

“You could have lied and said you’d won, and then we wouldn’t have to play anymore,” Casey says. “It’s good you’re not a liar, but you can lie about the license plate game next time if you want to.”

Dave chuckles. “You would have known if I’d lied.”

“I would have,” Casey agrees, “but I would have acted like I believed you.”

 

**[January 2012 — Casey]**

Later, he won't be able to pinpoint the exact moment it goes from a crush to completely, totally in love with David. It will bother him and he'll sort through his memory for a feeling of falling, for a moment of clarity, of when it suddenly hit him. He won't find it.

It happens slowly, building from that first time David walks him to class, growing and intensifying from that day in the auditorium when Casey sobs his secrets all over David's chest, so that some time around David receiving his acceptance letter to Georgia Tech, Casey's fantasies are monopolized by David. There's no room for anyone else.

And one night, Casey pulls on the black hoodie he borrowed-stole from David, breathes in the lingering ghost of David's scent, and quietly thinks _Oh, I'm in love with him._

Because it's less a lightning bolt of realization, and more an uncovering of something he should have already known, it gets lost in the following months' fear, pain, and confusion. That Casey loves David is an unwavering truth in Casey's mind by the time everything falls apart on a terrible Monday in February. He loves him; that's how it is.


	17. August 2014

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Together again.

**Saturday, August 2nd, 2014: North Avenue South dorm, Atlanta — Casey**

David closes the dorm door behind Monty and Shannon, and the common area settles into quiet. Casey has the quick and uncomfortable realization that he is being stared at by David’s roommates, so he looks over to David for some sort of help. David looks amused, but doesn’t seem particularly interested in beginning any conversation or doing anything else to make the staring stop, so Casey decides the best course of action is to return the stares just in case it’s some kind of social dominance thing, like in a wolf pack.

David finally chuckles. “I wonder how long y’all would stare at each other.”

Casey doesn’t break eye contact with Coop, whom he’s decided is probably the one who needs the most staring down, but he says, “David, I think I have to establish I’m not the omega wolf. I think that’s a thing.”

David bends over, he’s laughing so hard. “Case. It’s not a thing.”

“It _might_ be a thing!” Casey insists. 

“It’s not a thing,” David repeats. 

“Anyway, we all know Danny here’d be the omega wolf if it were a thing,” Ty says, also laughing.

“You figure I can look away now?” Coop asks. “’Cause now _I’m_ worried it’s a wolf thing.”

“I don’t hear anyone howling,” Danny remarks.

Casey blinks and looks away from Coop and over at David. “If it turns out to be a thing, I’m going to make you establish pack dominance on my behalf, and then I’ll overthrow you in a coup.”

“I’ll try to keep that in mind,” David says dryly, still chuckling, this time at Danny’s addition to the conversation. 

“But we ordered pizza!” Ty suddenly interjects. “Fourth meal.”

“Then I’ll stage my coup when the pizza gets here and take your pepperoni,” Casey says. “I think that works out well.” 

There’s considerably less staring, but still no real conversation, while they wait for the pizza. David sits down next to Casey on the sofa and flips on the television, and Casey lets the back of his hand brush against the back of David’s and then stay there. 

“So did they put in one of those beds that folds out of the wall?” Danny asks after several minutes pass. “Like my mama has for her ironing board.”

“Do you see any wall-beds around here?” Coop says. “Seriously, Danny. Which wall’re they gonna put the wall-bed in, anyway?”

“In the hall,” Danny says like it should be obvious. “That’s why it has to fold up into the wall during the day.”

“I don’t… think so?” Casey says. “David, there’s no bed in the hall, right?”

“No wall-bed or hall-bed,” David answers, clearly trying not to laugh.

“Are we going for rhyming beds now?” Ty asks. “I don’t think there’s any bed like that, though.”

“I’m just sleeping on the sofa,” Casey explains. “It’s only for a few weeks, so it’s fine.”

Coop snorts and says, “Yeah, sure,” under his breath. Before anybody can respond to that, though, the pizza delivery guy buzzes the room and Ty looks at Coop and jerks his thumb over his shoulder to indicate that Coop needs to go get the pizza. Once the pizza is back in the room, Casey’s amazed by how quickly it disappears. Casey swaps the sausage on his two slices for the pepperoni on David’s, and before Casey eats his slices, the rest of the pizza is gone.

“See, David?” Casey whispers. “Pack of wolves. It’s good I maintained eye contact earlier.”

David snorts and shakes his head, still chewing.

“I could be in grave danger here, David! You should take this a little more seriously,” Casey says. “You could wake up in the morning, I could be a pile of bones.”

“More likely for you to wake up hours before Coop emerges,” David argues.

“Hey, now!” Coop protests. “I’ve gotta bank sleep while I can!”

“There’s banking sleep, and there’s hibernating,” Ty says with a grin. 

“Y’all are gonna wish you’d hibernated a little more come Monday,” Coop grumbles. “You’re gonna be falling out on your asses, and I’ll be fresh as a daisy.”

“ _Just another manic Monday_ ,” Danny attempts to sing. Casey winces, though he tries to keep the wince small enough that Danny won’t notice.

“Jesus take the wheel,” Coop says. “Never sing, Danny. Never. Never do whatever it is you just did there, either.”

“My mama likes the Bangles!” Danny protests, like that has something to do with whether or not he can sing. 

“Yeah, well my mama’d like it if I made it through college without going deaf,” Coop counters. 

“Hey, Casey, did Special K stop you guys near Maryville?” Danny asks, turning away from Coop.

“Um. No?” Casey says, glancing over at David. “Was he supposed to?”

“Aww, that’s too bad,” Danny says, shrugging. “He didn’t give you a good tour.”

“Maybe next time,” Casey says, though he’s not exactly sure when ‘next time’ would be.

“So, Casey,” Coop begins, “does the Tech swim team make y’all wear those swimsuits that look like underwear?”

“Um.” Casey pointedly does _not_ look in David’s direction. “I don’t know.” He does know, but he’s not discussing it.

“You pick a major yet, Casey? Or you doing that ‘general engineering’ thing at first?” Ty asks.

“Civil engineering,” Casey says. “I knew I should steer clear of architecture, because I don’t like to sleep at tables.”

“No one should do architecture,” Ty says solemnly. “It’s just too bad that Special K was too stubborn to heed the warnings.”

“David never heeds the warnings,” Casey says, shaking his head slowly. “Poor David, with his life full of danger.”

“Yeah, that’s me. Danger-Dave.” David shakes his head. “You two are strange.”

“That would be a good name for a superhero,” Casey says. “I should call you that.”

“Naw, that’s a terrible superhero name,” Coop says. “You can’t put ‘Dave’ in a superhero name!”

“I thought Special K _was_ his superhero name!” Danny protests, looking upset.

“I’m not calling you that,” Casey says to David quietly. “Okay?”

“Last I checked, I didn’t even ask for a superhero name,” Dave says with a shrug. 

“Anyway, you’re Captain America,” Casey says.

“We should all be Avengers,” Ty says. “Coop, you’re Black Widow, and Danny, you can be Hawkeye. There, we’ve freed up a bed for Casey!”

“Hey!” Coop protests.

“No, I’m sorry,” Casey says. “Coop can’t be Black Widow. That’s Alicia Brown.”

“Do we know her?” Danny asks Ty, and Ty shakes his head. “Why’s that name sound familiar then?” David turns and gives Danny an inscrutable look, but doesn’t say anything.

“She’s my friend Rick’s girlfriend,” Casey explains, because that is both accurate and lets him avoid mentioning Miles, which he’s sure is probably the best plan. He and David seem to have an unspoken agreement to never mention Miles unless absolutely necessary. “And anyway, Rick is Hawkeye. Sorry, Danny.”

“See, Coop! Casey thinks Black Widow and Hawkeye should be together, too,” Ty says triumphantly. 

“Naw, they’re bros! They’re totally bros,” Coop argues. “Just you wait until the Black Widow movie comes out. You’ll see. They’re totally gonna hook her up with Bruce Banner.”

“Oh, crap, you got ’em started, Case,” David says with a grin. “If we’re lucky, they’ll stop soon.”

“What happens if we aren’t lucky?” Casey asks.

“An entire rewatch of the Avengers and related movies will commence.”

“Oh. That would be bad, because the sofa is my bed, but it’s also where the television is,” Casey says. 

David nods. “Like I said, unlucky. Unless Danny and I call up Todd to host it.”

Coop snorts again. “Sofa. Yeah. Right.”

Ty whacks Coop in the shoulder. “Hey stockpiler of sleep, don’t you have a pillow to make kissy-faces at?”

“Ow! Hey!” Coop says. “I don’t have to kiss my pillow. I get plenty of action!”

“Because you have an imagination,” Danny says with a grin. “It’s good, Coop. It’s good you have an imagination.”

“Imaginary girls,” Ty laughs. “Imaginary action with imaginary girls.”

“Both of you shut up,” Coop grumbles. “Just ’cause Special K handpicked girls from his high school for you and couldn’t find a third one for me.”

“Hey, no,” David protests. “That was an unfortunate coincidence. Both times.”

“I could send Puck an email and find out if Rachel Berry is single,” Casey offers.

David guffaws. “Case, you are cruel.”

“He’s the one who thinks Black Widow and Hulk should be a couple,” Casey says, shrugging. “He might like it.”

“Don’t accept any invitations to meet Rachel Berry,” David says seriously to Coop. “Trust me.”

“Well, on that note,” Coop says, standing up. “I’m going to look and see if they’ve updated that page about the Black Widow movie. I’ll let you know when I find proof that I’m right about the Bruce Banner thing.”

“Good, then that’ll be never,” Ty says smugly as Coop heads down the hall. “Don’t tell him,” Ty says more quietly, “but he’s probably right about getting some sleep.”

“We never tell Coop he’s right. I think the dorm would collapse from the wrongness of it,” David says, standing up also. “C’mon, Case, we’ll find blankets and everything at least.”

“Okay, that sounds good,” Casey says. “Goodnight Ty. Goodnight Danny.”

“Make Special K go get doughnuts in the morning,” Ty says with a grin, waving and going down the hall. Danny just waves and nods, going down the opposite hall. 

“Where _are_ the blankets?” Casey asks. “We didn’t leave them in the Lemon, did we?”

“Pretty sure they aren’t in there, but that’s about all I’m sure of,” David admits. “They were in one of the bags, not a box, right?”

“I think so,” Casey says. “Um. Maybe I think so. I hope so, at least?”

David shrugs and walks down the hall, towards where all of Casey’s stuff was neatly piled in David’s room, despite David’s professed desire to see how long it took Coop to trip over some of it. “I’ll start with this side of the pile and you start with that one?” David suggests with a grin.

“Sure!” Casey starts opening a box at his end of the pile, frowning. “You know, I never should have let Aunt Shannon help me pack. _My_ boxes I packed are all labeled.”

“Yeah, but at least it saved you some time, right?” David asks, breaking the tape and rifling through one of the boxes. “Nope, this is stuff you will probably need for one week of the year, if that.”

“It only saves time if it saves time on both ends,” Casey grumbles. “If I can’t find things on the unpacking end, it doesn’t really save time.” He glares into the box. “I don’t even know what’s in this box. I think it’s…” He picks up a smaller box. “Clif bars? And other food. I have a box of boxes of food.”

“Put one under your pillow? Sounds like some kind of weird superstition, doesn’t it?” David laughs and opens another box. “Found a pillow, anyway! And towels.”

“I’ll probably just put the food in your kitchen, if that’s alright with you,” Casey says. “Since I’m going to be staying here, I should keep my food here.” He holds up a pack of ramen noodles. “I have ramen! It’s like being a real college student.”

“They’re making me do chili on Wednesday night, so don’t save it for Wednesday,” David says. 

“Save the ramen for Wednesday night. Check!”

David laughs and shakes his head. “Ah-ha. Blankets, sheet, and a pillowcase.”

“I can sleep! It’s a miracle!” Casey says. “Oh. Hmm. I probably need clothes for sleeping in. Is that my bag over there?”

“Yeah, that’s yours. And I put your shower caddy in the bathroom already.” For some reason, that makes David start to laugh again.

“Yes. Um. That’s… good.” Suddenly, Casey feels his face getting hot, and he can’t exactly put his finger on why, unless it’s just the whole shower and sleeping arrangement discussion in general. Maybe it’s just that it’s been a very, very long day. “I should go and, um. Shower. Or something.”

David nods. “Yeah, that’s good. I’ll probably wait until tomorrow morning in case I go run. ’Night, Case.”

Casey picks up the stack of blankets, the pillow, and his bag. “Goodnight, David.” He carries his armful of things back into the common area, where he dumps it all onto the sofa. Once he’s assembled something vaguely bed-related out of the blankets and pillow, Casey goes into the bathroom and showers, doing his very best to not think about David just across the little hallway. He even mostly succeeds.

After his shower, Casey lies on the sofa and stares up at the ceiling, willing his brain to shut off so he can get at least some small amount of sleep. It has been a long day, and he’s exhausted, but instead of falling asleep, he keeps going over and over everything in his head. He’s in Atlanta with David. He’s in _Atlanta_ with _David_ , finally, after two years of waiting, and even though he has no idea what’s going to happen next, or when ‘not yet’ is going to turn into ‘now’, he realizes he’s happier than he can ever remember being. 

 

**Sunday, August 3rd, 2014: Just off campus, Atlanta — Dave**

Dave does pull on workout clothes and go for a run as soon as he wakes up, knowing that if he doesn’t do it early, he’ll have to wait until well after dark, as hot as Atlanta is in August. When he gets back to the dorm, Casey’s already up, his blankets put away and coffee made, and Dave greets him before taking a quick shower. There’s a cup of coffee waiting once Dave is out of the shower and dressed, and he takes it with a smile. 

“Thanks. Seriously, you want to go grab some doughnuts? We can drive, it’ll get hot before we’d get back.”

Casey nods. “Doughnuts are good. I like doughnuts.”

“It’s not too far,” Dave explains as he grabs his keys, “but it’s going to get up close to a hundred today, which means it’s already starting.”

“I can’t imagine what a hundred degrees even feels like!”

“If you go out around three or four today, you can find out,” Dave says wryly. “Luckily we do morning and evening practices during preseason. Afternoons are team meetings, game films, weight room, that kind of thing.”

“That’s good. If it’s that hot, people shouldn’t be doing football in it,” Casey says, his tone serious. 

“Yeah, Georgia has some strict rules for the high schoolers, which is good.” Dave shrugs and heads down the stairs. “It’s just really not worth being outside in the afternoon, period.”

When Dave opens the door to the building and they step outside, Casey staggers backwards a step and says, “Ohmigod David, _why_?”

“Why what?” Dave asks. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s so hot! And there’s something wrong with the air!” Casey says. He sounds almost betrayed. “It’s… heavy. The air is _heavy_.”

“Yeah, it’s the humidity. Well, a little bit the air quality, but that doesn’t get really bad until later,” Dave explains. 

“I feel like I don’t know how to breathe this air correctly,” Casey grumbles. “It’s not actually fully breathable air, I don’t think.”

Dave shakes his head. “Yeah, it’s really not. Asthmatics are supposed to stay inside and stuff.” Dave walks towards the parking deck. “Hence driving.”

“Yes. Hence. Obviously,” Casey says. “How do people survive here in the summer, David?”

“Air conditioning.” Dave shrugs. “And if the air quality is orange or red, you don’t go outside.” He unlocks the truck and climbs in. “But the doughnuts are inside at least.”

“They should serve iced doughnuts,” Casey says, getting into the passenger seat. “Not icing-iced. Actual ice.”

“Ice cubes shaped like doughnuts, maybe?” Dave says, driving across campus after starting the truck. “It could be an advertising thing.”

“Doughnuts filled with frozen custard,” Casey suggests. “That would be really good.”

“Hmm. Do you think they’d have to freeze the doughnuts?”

“Maybe they just put the frozen custard in when you buy it,” Casey says. “Don’t they have those things they use to inject the filling in? They could use that.”

“You could suggest it,” Dave says, nodding. “It’d give them another product to sell, the custard, anyway.” There aren’t many people near the shop, even though it’s Sunday morning, and Dave parks not too far down the road. “Not too far to walk today.”

“If I melt before I get there, just go on without me,” Casey says. 

Dave laughs. “Nah, melting doesn’t start until at least noon.” He heads towards the doughnut shop and opens the door, glad the line isn’t as long as it sometimes is. 

“So, this place looks nice,” Casey says. 

“You should know.” Dave grins and holds Casey’s gaze. “You’re the one that sent me here, after all.”

Casey frowns thoughtfully. “Hmm. Oh! That place from forever ago? The one I sent when you first moved?”

“Yep.” Dave keeps grinning. “They make a wicked raspberry danish.” The line shifts forward and Dave grabs Casey’s hand and pulls him towards the case. “But I know there’s more that you’ll like better. Take a look.”

“Oh! I want them all!” Casey bounces in place. “I should have them all.”

“If you have two every morning, it’ll still take about a month to try them all,” Dave can’t help but point out. 

“Then I should probably have three or four,” Casey says, like that’s a perfectly reasonable solution. “Ooh, what’s _that_ one?” he adds, pointing towards the far end of the case. 

“S’mores. I’ve had it once. You’d probably like it,” Dave says, nodding. “Wait until spring to try the one with the fresh strawberries in it, though.”

“Okay,” Casey says. “Then I’ll get that one and, hmm. Maybe the one two to the left of that one.”

“Chocolate banana fritter, also a great choice,” Dave says stiffly, then breaks and grins. “You’ll be shocked at my choices. Should we get some assorted ones and take back, or tell ’em they should have gotten up if they wanted food?”

“I’m still new. I should bring peace offerings, probably, just to make sure they don’t decide to get rid of me!” Casey says. “Where would I sleep if they kicked me out?”

“Oh, well that’s easy. We kick Coop out instead.” Dave laughs, then orders their doughnuts. “All of us would rather have you than Coop, I’m pretty sure. Well, I know I would, and Ty’s smart, so he’d agree with me.” 

“Well,” Casey says, wrinkling his nose slightly. “That probably wouldn’t be very nice for Coop.” His smile starts off small and gradually gets wider, like he’s trying not to seem pleased but then gives in. “I wouldn’t need his whole room, though. I don’t need that much space.”

“Why limit yourself, though?” Dave jokes, dropping Casey’s hand to pay for the doughnuts before taking the two boxes from the guy behind the counter. “You might decide you like having that much space.”

“That much space might not like having me, though,” Casey answers. 

“You could set up a drying rack!” Dave counters. “Then it wouldn’t seem like so much space, maybe.” He stops at the truck and hands the boxes to Casey. “Here, now they’ll definitely kick out Coop in your favor.”

“I don’t think I need a whole rack just for drying,” Casey says, “but it’s good I’d win over Coop, at least.”

“On second thought, it’s possible Coop’s set up something in his room that we don’t want to be in charge of clearing out.” Dave frowns and climbs into the truck. “Ty thought it was a still maybe.”

Casey looks concerned as he balances the boxes and gets into the truck. “Do those explode?”

“Nah, that’s meth. We’re sure it’s not meth. Moonshine, though, seems possible.” Dave shrugs. “Or it could just be a huge mess.”

“Maybe I won’t move into Coop’s room, then,” Casey says. “Anyway, that side of the dorm has sort of a funny smell.”

“That’s Coop,” Dave agrees. “Definitely Coop.”

“Danny doesn’t have any secret cats hidden in his room or anything like that?”

“Not as far as I know.” Dave winces. “On second thought, don’t say that too loud, though, not around Danny. He might decide it’s a great way for he and Brittany to bond further or something.”

“That whole thing is _so_ weird, David. So weird!” Casey shakes his head. “It’s like you can’t escape Lima.”

“I know,” Dave groans and shakes his head. “Case, when I ran into Mercedes at that party, I was surprised enough, but then she and Ty started dating and I was like… what are the odds, right?”

“Maybe I should have gone to Missouri,” Casey says. “Since you already have so much Lima here.”

Dave rolls his eyes, then shakes his head and looks over at Casey when he pulls up to a stop sign. “But if, say, you went on vacation to… Florida. And someone asked where you were from, now, where would you say?”

“Atlanta,” Casey says firmly.

“There you go. You’re from Atlanta,” Dave says with a nod. 

“So I don’t need to transfer to Missouri, then?”

“No, because think about the horror of that,” Dave says, laughing. “You’d have to say you were from Kansas City or something.”

“David, I’m not from _any_ place I live,” Casey insists. “Just specific ones.”

“Nope. Against the rules,” Dave says cheerfully, pulling back into the parking garage.

“I’m a rule-breaker. I’d never, ever, ever be from Missouri, even if I lived there. I’d just be from Lima, or I’d lie and I’d still say I’m from Atlanta,” Casey says. He clutches the doughnut boxes. “Do you think everyone’s awake? If they aren’t awake, we could hide these and eat them later.”

Dave laughs. “Everyone but Coop, probably. He takes his stockpiling seriously. He’ll still fall asleep early on Monday night though.”

“Maybe Coop doesn’t get any doughnuts.”

“See, Case? You understand the important rules of 315.”

“Coop’s vote doesn’t count?” Casey offers. 

“Yep.” Dave nods. “That’s one of them.” They walk towards the building, and Dave opens the door. “Another one is that it’s always Coop’s turn to clean the bathrooms.”

“Both of them? Even the one that’s not on his side?”

“Well, yeah.” Dave laughs. “Don’t you think that’s fair?”

“Does that mean I don’t have to clean bathrooms while I’m staying there?” Casey asks. 

“Exactly!” They head up the stairs and then Dave stops in front of the dorm door, listening for a minute. “I hear Ty at least.”

Casey looks disappointed for a moment, then nods. “I guess he can have his doughnuts, then.”

Dave feels a little disappointed and even uneasy himself, but he sighs and unlocks the door, holding it open for Casey. “Morning, Ty,” Dave manages, as Casey walks into the dorm, doughnut boxes slightly raised. 

“Hey, doughnuts,” Ty says, dragging out the last syllable. “Awesome, guys. Hurry, hurry, the other side of the dorm isn’t awake yet. Casey, what’d you think of our doughnut shop?”

“They should have fewer kinds of doughnuts, so my goal of trying all of them but the peanut butter kinds is achievable,” Casey says, setting the boxes down on the counter. 

“More fun this way,” Ty argues. 

Dave shakes his head and opens the top box, putting Casey’s doughnuts on a paper towel and handing them off before grabbing his own on another paper towel. He almost wishes Ty had been still asleep, too, or out running, but at least there won’t be another staring contest with Coop and Danny still not awake. “The table disappeared,” Dave explains to Casey, “so we just eat on the couch or chairs. I think Danny’s got his webcam stuff on it.”

“Tables are optional,” Casey says. “There’s a coffee table, anyway. That’s technically a table. It’s just a short table.”

“See, he’s smart, Special K,” Ty says, picking up some doughnuts. “The coffee table does indeed work.”

“It’s true,” Dave admits, sinking onto the couch. “It’s multifunctional.”

“Useful tables,” Casey says, setting his paper towel with doughnuts on the coffee table. He picks up the s’mores doughnut and carefully tears it in half, scooping some of the filling out of one half with a finger. Dave can feel his eyes widen a little and he takes a bite of his raspberry danish, carefully not looking at Ty at all. He follows the movement of Casey’s finger back out of his mouth and into the filling again, and Dave deliberately takes a second bite as Casey’s finger disappears inside his mouth a second time. Dave can hear Ty snort as Casey continues to eat all of the filling in the same manner, but Dave still doesn’t even glance at Ty. When all the filling is gone, Casey carefully tears the doughnut into small bites, which he eats one by one. By then, Dave decides that eating half a doughnut in one bite isn’t the worst idea he’s ever had.

“So,” Ty says, dragging out that word too. “What do you think now, Casey, about the doughnuts?”

“They’re better than the ones at Pat’s,” Casey says. “Atlanta is just better in general, except for the thing with the air.”

“The thing with the air?” Ty asks.

“How it tries to crush you to death,” Casey explains. “Other than that, it’s great here!”

“Oh, yeah.” Ty nods. “That’s a good description of it, actually. Like someone’s sitting on your lungs.”

Casey nods in agreement and picks up his fritter, which he also tears into small, even bites. Dave shakes his head a little and picks up another doughnut for himself. “It’s just the city’s way of saying hello, Case. ‘Welcome to Atlanta!’ I think.”

Casey grins at Dave. “Atlanta: Breathing Optional,” he says. 

 

**Monday, August 4th, 2014: North Avenue South dorm, Atlanta — Ty**

Ty knows by now he should be used to the shock of preseason after summer workouts, but he’s not, which means by the time he gets back to the dorm, he stumbles to the bathroom without looking around. There’s no towels on the floor, which is a nice change, and when Ty finishes the shower without falling over, he realizes the bathroom in general is neater than he can ever remember seeing it. He shrugs and towels off, pulling on a clean pair of shorts and heading towards the kitchen. 

All the dishes are clean, which is weird, but it’s only their third or fourth day back; give ’em another few days of preseason and then chili night, and Ty’s pretty sure they won’t be able to see the counter. He doesn’t really _need_ anything, since they all had dinner on campus just an hour ago, but he pulls out some beef jerky and a bottle of Gatorade anyway, heading for the television. That cooking show is still on, the one that was on every Monday night all summer at home, and no one gives Ty any grief about the cooking shows, not once they’ve had his family’s cooking. 

Ty slumps down in one of the chairs with the remote and almost does a double take when he looks over at the couch before relaxing. “Oh, hey, Casey.”

Casey glances up from his laptop. “Hi, Ty. How was your football practice?”

“Long,” Ty settles on. “It’s how coaches are creative. Finding ways to occupy an entire day despite the supposed rules about how long we can practice.”

“I’m glad my sport is indoors. And in the water.” Casey looks thoughtful for a second. “And in the winter.”

“We weren’t even outside that much,” Ty says, opening his beef jerky. “Just so long. You explore Atlanta a little?”

“I walked around part of campus and looked in the buildings,” Casey says. “It’s so hot out there.”

“You see the one that’s marble, in with all the brick? You know why that’s there?”

“I saw it. Why’s it there?”

“When they were building it, Duke was getting a new building too. Same contractors and everything, and the buildings were a lot alike. Turns out Duke got our brick building, and we got their marble!”

“Oh no!” Casey says, shutting his laptop. “Were the people at Duke very upset?”

“No more than we were, I guess,” Ty says with a shrug. He takes a bite of his beef jerky and opens his Gatorade while he chews. “Oh, hey,” he says after swallowing, “you want some beef jerky? Got like five different flavors. My granddad stopped at one of those beef jerky outlets for me over the summer.”

“I didn’t know beef jerky came in flavors. What time is it?” Casey asks. 

“Almost eight, I think. And yeah, like ten or fifteen of them.”

“Okay. Yes, I’ll eat some beef jerky. Thanks!” 

“If you want barbeque, you can take this one,” Ty says, tossing one at Casey. “Other flavors’re still in the kitchen.”

Casey sniffs the beef jerky and eyes it suspiciously before taking a tiny nibble from the edge. He still looks undecided about the jerky, but he shrugs and takes another bite. “Barbeque jerky is an interesting jerky,” he says, after a minute or two.

“I like the cheddar one a lot, and the spicy ones,” Ty offers. “But barbeque is good.”

“I don’t think I’d like the spicy ones,” Casey says. A bell-sounding alarm goes off on Casey’s phone, which is sitting on the arm of the sofa, and Casey switches it off without really looking at it. “Cheddar might be nice. Do you know when David will be back?”

“Everybody’s meeting with their group’s assistant coach or coordinator,” Ty explains. “I just got lucky and got done first. Hard to say. Defense’ll be there the longest, though, not OL.” Ty shakes his head. “They still haven’t really found big D.”

“Big… who?” Casey’s eyebrows rise in apparent alarm. “Did they lose somebody?”

“D. Big D, defense?” Ty explains.

“Oh. So, not a person. That’s good. I thought maybe they’d lost a whole person, and how does _that_ happen?” Casey shakes his head. “I guess it doesn’t actually happen, though.”

“Nah, we haven’t misplaced anybody yet.” Ty drains the rest of his Gatorade and stands up to go get another one as Special K walks in. “Hey, Special K.”

Special K just nods, taking the bottle of Gatorade Ty holds out and drinking it down. Casey stands up and sort of hops in place like an excited puppy.

“Hi, David!” Casey says. 

“Hey, Case,” Special K responds. “Didn’t get too bored?”

“No, I stayed busy. I did lots of things,” Casey says.

Special K laughs. “Yeah, that’s good.” He grabs something out of the refrigerator and walks over to the couch without another glance at Ty, sinking into it with a groan. Casey immediately sits back down close to him, and Ty opens the refrigerator himself so he can hide his smirk. Then Ty realizes there’s actually some leftovers from the previous night’s Chinese food run, so he sticks a box in the microwave, listening to the sound of Special K talking and Casey giggling at whatever it is that Special K’s telling him. By the time Ty finds a fork and heads back to his chair and his cooking show, though, Special K and Casey are both passed out, slumped against each other on the sofa. 

The door opens again, the refrigerator opens again, and then Danny walks in. “Aww, they’re so cute!” he says quietly, and he pulls out his phone, snapping a picture. “I’m gonna go send this to Britt. She’d like to see it.”

The door opens one more time and slams closed, followed by the noise of stuff being dropped onto the floor. Coop rattles around in the kitchen, opening and closing the fridge and cabinets, before wandering into the common area with a bottle of Gatorade and a plate of various items. 

“Well,” Coop says, looking at Special K and Casey asleep on the sofa. “That’s… something, anyway.”

“And just think, Casey wasn’t at practice all day even,” Ty says, amused. “Looks like they’ve done that before, don’t they?”

“I’m just impressed Special K’s not squishing him, leaning on his shoulder like that,” Coop says, gnawing on a cold chicken leg. “I don’t know how Casey’s holding him up.”

“I’m telling you,” Ty says, poking at his Chinese food. “Not the first time. Casey’s had plenty of practice.”

Coop shrugs. “Maybe he’s stronger than he looks. Guess he’d have to be, since he don’t look too strong.”

“Have to be, right? Swimmer and all.” Ty shrugs. “You tight ends have a nice meeting?”

“I think I dozed through about half of it,” Coop confesses. “I’ve gotten good at sleeping with my eyes open.”

“Hey. That is a very important skill, for football and classes.”

“Yeah, I’m a highly skilled dude like that, I guess,” Coop says. “You figure they’re gonna stay like that all night?”

Ty shrugs. “Guess so. They don’t care if the television’s on at least, so why move ’em?”

“Like we could move Special K if we wanted to,” Coop mutters, shaking his head. 

“We’d have to get some of the defensive line,” Ty agrees. “Least that way they’d be doing something useful.”

 

**Thursday, August 7th, 2014: North Avenue South dorm, Atlanta — Dave**

An after-dinner practice necessitates yet another shower, and when Dave drops onto the couch next to Casey, he isn’t convinced that he’s not going to start sweating again. Casey hands Dave a cold bottle of Gatorade.

“Thanks, Case,” Dave says, drinking half the bottle. “See anything interesting today?”

“Hmm. Well, I walked to the Varsity and got a Frosted Orange,” Casey says. “Then I saw someone walking five very small dogs that all looked the same, so that was kind of funny. Oh, and people were swordfighting.”

“Stage fighting?” Dave asks. “Wait, were they fighting the five dogs?”

“Huh?” Casey wrinkles his nose and looks dubious. “David, why would they be fighting tiny dogs with swords?”

“Practice?” Dave shrugs. “I don’t know, maybe it’s some kind of cutting-edge theatre thing.” He takes another drink of Gatorade so he won’t start laughing. Casey does start laughing, though.

“Cutting edge!” Casey repeats. “I think they were padded swords, though.”

“Padded edge doesn’t have the same ring to it. And come to think of it, why doesn’t the Varsity deliver? We could be having hot dogs and FOs right now.”

“It’s crazy that they don’t!” Casey says. “We should lodge a complaint. Do they have a suggestions box?”

“If they don’t, we should suggest that too,” Dave says with a laugh. “Could you imagine how much money they’d make off of Tech students, though? Maybe Dining Services pays them not to deliver.”

“Maybe so. Maybe it’s a conspiracy. I think I’ll investigate.”

“Maybe we could make a petition to deliver. Isn’t that what people do, petition?” Dave suggests.

“There’s a website for that. We could go global,” Casey says. “I’ll set it up in the morning. My laptop is very far away right now. It’s all the way on the coffee table.”

“That’s too far,” Dave agrees.

“I need to work on my psychic powers. I could telekinesis it over here with my—” Casey’s interrupted by one of his alarms, and he sighs. “Well, never mind. I guess I’m getting up.” He hauls himself onto his feet dramatically. “I’ll be right back.”

“Oh, is this when commercials are going to entertain me?” Dave jokes.

“Yes. Buy all our playsets and toys,” Casey says over his shoulders as he walks to the kitchen. Dave can hear the freezer opening and closing, then something being set on the kitchen counter, and then Casey returns with two bowls of ice cream. He hands the one with significantly more ice cream to David. “Here. Eat your ice cream. It’s hot outside.”

Dave laughs. “Yeah, I was reading about some team out west that has ice cream at the end of each week of preseason, but they have it outside. And it doesn’t melt! Makes me want to see what summer’s like in the pacific northwest.”

“We could always reconsider Missouri, you know,” Casey says, gesturing with his spoon. “Though if we moved to Seattle, it would rain more.”

“Nah, Missouri’s just the unfortunate middle of the country. And just wait until you see a rainy January down here.” Dave shakes his head and digs into his ice cream. “Also there’s redwoods and all of that.”

“So, northern California? Or do we really have to go all the way up to Oregon or Washington, do you think?” Casey asks. “They have a lot of coffee in Seattle. And nobody sleeps. Well, that’s what I’ve learned from movies, anyway.”

“You could work for the first Starbucks or something,” Dave laughs. “Nah, maybe just a visit. All the National Parks or something.” It’s a relief to not be discussing a particular region’s bowl prospects, or what stadium to play in. Most of the guys on the team aren’t looking at NFL careers—Dave knows that’s nothing he wants for himself, either—but enough are that various NFL stadiums and teams get discussed, too, as soon as another city is mentioned. 

“As long as we don’t have to camp in them,” Casey says. “I’ve camped now. I’ve done it, so I don’t have to do it again.” He pokes his ice cream with his spoon. “I mean, I’d camp if I _had_ to, but maybe we could stay in, um. Hotels. Instead.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Dave grins. “You didn’t want to try backpacking? We could start with something short. Like the Appalachian Trail.”

Casey makes his grumpy face. “It’s like you _want_ me to be eaten by a bear, David. That’s not very nice.”

“I promise we’d take bear repellant. And black bears are much less aggressive than grizzlies.”

“You know, I’m pretty quick,” Casey says. “I could probably outrun you. Then you’ll have to fight the bear yourself.”

“Oh, I just figured we’d lie down and play possum.” Dave scrapes the last of the ice cream out of his bowl. “Don’t we look possum-like?”

“We look just like possums. Especially you,” Casey says. “I was just thinking to myself that I’d never met anybody who was as much like a possum as you.”

“Exactly.” Dave sets his bowl down. “Right down to the long tail. I just keep it hidden with, um.” Dave stops to think about what could hide a tail. “Invisibility cloak.”

“Can you use it to hang upside down? I’ve never seen you hang upside down, but that would be a really good trick,” Casey says. “I hide my tail in my back pocket.”

“Yeah, I can’t reveal my tricks, it would completely destroy my human cover, see,” Dave explains. “Possum espionage.”

“Not even for me? I mean, David, you know I’d never tell anyone about your secret possuming.”

“Not until after I’ve successfully completed my mission.”

“Hmph,” Casey grumbles, nudging Dave’s shoulder with his. “You’re no fun.”

“Yeah, I know.” Dave sighs and shakes his head. “It’s a shame. I’m a horrible bore. Not a _boar_ , I’m not a wild pig.”

“No, you’re a spy possum,” Casey agrees. “With secret possum, um. Secrets.”

“It’s a hard life,” Dave agrees. “Keeping the world safe for possums. Well, possums that never encounter a vehicle, at least.”

“You’re a hero, David. A hero to possums everywhere. I should know, because I am also a possum,” Casey says. “You can tell because of how I look just like a possum.” Casey looks like he’s attempting to make his face more pointy, his nose wrinkling and wiggling. Dave shakes his head, noticing that even after just a few days out in Atlanta, the freckles are even more pronounced than a summer in Lima could make them. They’re so thickly clustered in places that Dave would have to lean closer just to see where one ends and another begins, and he grins at Casey. 

“Yep, Case. That’s it. Exactly like a possum.” 

 

**Tuesday, August 12th, 2014: North Avenue South dorm, Atlanta — Casey**

Casey isn’t exactly sure what he expected from a dorm full of football players living together, but the reality is more cluttered and messier than any of his expectations. David was never the most organized or tidiest person in the world, but apparently he may as well be, at least by comparison to his roommates. Coop especially just drops things when he comes in the door and leaves them there until he needs them again. They all leave dishes wherever they finish them, towels seem magnetically drawn towards the floor, and after over a week of preseason practices, the smell of Coop and Danny’s workout clothes is threatening to melt their half of the dorm.

He doesn’t start out with the goal of cleaning the entire dorm. Mostly Casey just returns David’s belongings to his room and picks up a few things, but eventually he realizes that despite David’s joke about Coop cleaning the bathrooms, the bathrooms don’t seem to actually get cleaned. The kitchen isn’t in much better shape. 

Casey has a _lot_ of free time, even with reading everything David recommended and getting a jump on some of the programming assignments for CS, and they are all being nice enough to let Casey stay in their dorm. Keeping the space he’s sharing with them neat doesn’t seem like much trouble in return. Once things are tidy, probably that will encourage all the roommates to return things to their correct place.

Of course, the first thing Casey did was fix David’s bookshelf, but that only took about an hour and he finished it the first day of preseason. After that, he reorganized the cabinets, put loose food—like his Clif bars, which seem to be disappearing faster than he realized he was eating them—into clear bins and labeling them. He finally loses his ability to ignore the bathroom situation and cleans first Dave and Ty’s, and then, because he already has the spray bottle stuff out, cleans the other one. 

While he’s not at a point yet of going into anyone’s bedroom but David’s to retrieve laundry, the stinky T-shirts that seem to be draped over or stuffed under every piece of furniture in the dorm do all get collected and washed along with Casey’s clothes – and David’s, since they’re _right there_ , and there’s no reason _not_ to wash them, and David has so many other things to be doing with his time. 

Really, having things to do around the dorm keeps Casey’s mind occupied, and while he’d appreciate it if other people would pick up after themselves, too, he likes having something to keep himself busy. Plus, a well-ordered space is just that much more comfortable to live in. He’s not sure how the four roommates have survived the past two years living in that kind of clutter, mess, and chaos, but at least now David doesn’t have to live like that. 

 

**Wednesday, August 13th, 2014: Various grocery stores, Atlanta — Ty**

All the running backs get set free from position meetings before dinner, which means either they’re doing really well or really poorly, Ty figures. Either way, it means he gets to eat dinner somewhere that isn’t the dining hall, and possibly leave campus like he’s been meaning to for a few days. He heads back to the dorm, walks straight to the shower, then gets dressed and goes to see if Casey’s there or not. 

“Hey, Casey, c’mon, we’re going somewhere.”

“Oh. We are?” Casey asks, setting down his book. “Okay.”

“Yeah, the rest of ’em will still be in meetings and stuff until after dinner.”

“Where are we going?” Casey pulls on his shoes and shoves his phone into his pocket.

“Well, I gotta get a few things at Publix, then I figured we’d find dinner that wasn’t on campus, right?” Ty laughs. “The fine cuisine of Dining Services.”

“Oh, that sounds like a good plan. Somebody used the last of the coffee, anyway,” Casey says. “They didn’t replace it and I’m the one who discovered it, so I guess that means I have to.” He frowns. “And all the chocolate chip Clif bars. I don’t remember eating them, but they’re gone, so I must have eaten them and not realized that’s what I was eating.”

“Pretty sure I saw Coop or Danny eating some of those,” Ty admits. “Anyway, since Special K made chili last week, this week’s my turn. I just do a bunch of snacks for Friday night movie marathon, though.” He winces as they walk back into the sun. “Wish those clouds’d open up and just storm. So I have all my stuff to pick up.”

“That makes perfect sense,” Casey says. “It’s good he doesn’t make the chili too often, I think.”

“Yeah, the other three of us would have to send home for more money even quicker!” Ty laughs. “All that meat adds up.”

“Too much meat,” Casey mutters under his breath. 

“No such thing,” Ty counters, climbing into his car. “Too many different kinds sometimes. I mean, I like poultry, but I don’t want one of those turduck-chicken things. My mama says that’s just gimmick cooking, not real skill.”

Casey nods. “That sounds like it’s probably true. I think your mama is right.”

Ty grins. “I knew you were smart, Casey. So any snack you just have to have for movies?”

“I like candy for movies,” Casey says, shrugging. 

“Oh.” Ty frowns. “Yeah, I don’t make candy. I leave that to more talented individuals.”

“David says candy doesn’t count as a snack, anyway. Also, I think the red flavored kinds are hard to make at home.”

“Maybe Special K’s right. Okay, so. Popcorn? I know. Caramel corn. That’s like candy.”

“Hmm. Yes, it’s _like_ candy,” Casey agrees. “Regular popcorn is fine, though.”

“Popcorn, too, then,” Ty says, pulling into a spot at the Publix. They find about three-fourths of what Ty needs at Publix, and as soon as he gets back in the car, he turns to Casey. “Let’s go over to Trader Joe’s and see if they have the rest.”

“Sure! I haven’t been to Trader Joe’s before,” Casey says. 

“Pretty much everything is their own brand, but they have some good stuff. Oh, man, I should get some of their dips.”

“David likes dips. I think he likes any food that you can dip in another food,” Casey offers. 

“Uh-huh,” Ty says, fixing his eyes on the road, because his brain wants to go some strange places with that information. 

“It’s true! He also likes boring milkshakes and ice cream, but that’s okay. I just try to make sure he has excitement in other areas of his life,” Casey says, conversationally. 

“Yeah, that’s uh— that’s good of you,” Ty says, pulling into the Trader Joe’s and trying hard not to even crack a smile. “So here’s Trader Joe’s!” he announces unnecessarily.

“Great! So, it’s just like a regular grocery store?”

“Well, smaller,” Ty explains, grabbing a cart. “And the stuff that’s cheaper is a lot cheaper.”

“Is the stuff that’s not cheaper a lot less not cheap?” Casey asks. “Is it like extreme shopping? That could be fun. It would be like a game show.”

“Well, I mean, it’s not expensive, but some of it’s just a really good deal.”

“Oh. Okay. I guess I’ll just see what they have, then.”

Ty nods and heads for the prepared food first, because there’s no law he actually has to make dip himself. As long as there’s chips and dip stuff there, no one can complain. He decides to get some frozen burritos and almost runs into Casey. “Oops, sorry.”

“No, it’s fine! I’m sorry!” Casey says. “I was in the way. I was looking at these cookies. They’re cat cookies, but they’re for people. See? It says it on the package. Cat Cookies for People.”

“Oh, yeah, those are pretty good,” Ty agrees, picking up a handful of burritos.

“I’m going to buy four of these. They have the best name of any cookies I have ever seen. Cat Cookies for People! How great is that?”

Ty laughs. “Yeah, okay. I got almost everything now.” Ty waits until they’ve paid and are back out of the heat before he springs the next destination on Casey. “Now it’s Whole Foods so I can finish this list off. And have you had Eats yet?”

“Aren’t your burritos going to melt?” Casey asks. “And no, I haven’t.”

“Nah, I’ve been meaning to get one of those freezer bags at Whole Foods anyway.” Ty shrugs. “We’ll get dinner at Eats after Whole Foods.”

“How many more places are we going, anyway?” Casey asks. 

“That should take care of it. I don’t want to try Kroger if Whole Foods doesn’t have everything.”

“Atlanta has _so_ many grocery stores!” Casey says. “David didn’t warn me about that.”

Ty laughs. “Yeah, I guess we do. My mama still misses this one that went out of business when I was five or something. Harris Teeter. See, used to be worse!” They do have the last three things on Ty’s list at Whole Foods, and he gets a freezer bag for his burritos before they go into Eats. “Chicken, vegetables, pasta,” he says, rubbing his hands together. “Think I’m going to go for ‘all of the above’.”

“I think maybe I’ll just eat pasta. Jerk chicken sounds spicy,” Casey says, eyeing the menu board suspiciously. 

“Oh, yeah, it is,” Ty says. “But you can’t beat the food here.” He grins at the person behind the counter and gives his order, then gestures for Casey go ahead. Once they both have their plates, Ty sits down at a booth near the window. “Now we can watch all the cars. I always think they’re going to wreck, but they never do.”

“Oh. Oh that’s, um. Very nervewracking!” Casey eats his pasta and watches the cars with a nervous expression. “They never do wreck, though?”

“Haven’t seen or heard of one yet,” Ty has to admit. “So anyway, now you know where to get groceries and where to get pasta. Not bad, right?”

“Now I know where to get _everything_ ,” Casey agrees. “I don’t know that I’ll ever need so many groceries ever.”

Ty laughs. “You never know when Special K might have, uh, a dip emergency,” he says, hurriedly taking another bite of chicken. “Right?”

Casey frowns. “I guess that’s true, though I’m not sure how dip could be an emergency situation. Maybe if there were a party and you ran out, but I don’t think David’s planning on having any parties in the near future.”

“Nah, nah. Just if you have, you know.” Ty grins. “Things to dip, and nothing to dip them in.”

Casey’s frown deepens. “I think this may be a sugar cookie conversation that we’re having.”

“I don’t know anything about sugar cookies. You’re the one that bought four containers of the cookies at Trader Joe’s.”

“But those are real cookies. The sugar cookies are euphemistic. You should ask David, he’ll explain.” Casey suddenly grins. “Or he won’t. Either way, sugar cookies. It’s a thing.”

Ty returns the grin. “You know what, Casey. I think I just might do that. I’ll ask Special K at practice tomorrow, first thing.”

“You should be sure to tell him I told you his were best.”

Ty holds his fist out for a bump, waiting to continue speaking until after Casey’s returned it. “I’ll keep that in mind. I will definitely keep that in mind.”

 

**Thursday, August 14th, 2014: North Avenue South dorm, Atlanta — Dave**

Dave knows Casey’s still bored during the day, even with exploring Atlanta and getting a jump on the school year. And Dave knows that the other four of them are tired after a day of practice. Dave’s starting to suspect that the others are taking advantage of it, though, not worrying about putting things away and expecting everything to be clean when they come back at the end of the day. 

And then over dinner Ty mentioned that he wasn’t sure that Coop and Danny weren’t eating the Clif bars, and Dave shakes his head irritably as he showers. He decides to get a Gatorade out of the refrigerator and sit where he can watch everyone come in as well as walk down the hall. He does just that, frowning a little as he sits down and repositions the chair. 

“I’m watching,” he explains to Casey.

“What are you watching?” Casey asks him.

“The rest of them,” Dave answers, watching Ty wander in, grab a drink, and then go down the hall. He’s probably left his towel on the floor, too, but at least it’s not as bad as it could be. Danny comes in next, slumping into the other chair and letting the stuff in his hands hit the floor. Dave could give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he’ll take his stuff when he gets up, but Dave knows Danny probably won’t remember that he had any stuff, by the time he gets up. The door opens a final time, and Dave settles back with his Gatorade, ready to watch Coop.

“Why?” Casey asks quietly. “What are we watching for?”

Dave scowls. “Poor behavior.”

“Oh, okay,” Casey says. 

Coop drops his shoes, a sweaty T-shirt, and his backpack by the door, then goes into the kitchen, where he drinks a bottle of Gatorade, leaving the empty bottle on the counter. He helps himself to one of Casey’s white chocolate macadamia Clif bars, then balls up the wrapper and tosses it at the can, missing; he leaves the wrapper where it lands. 

Dave doesn’t even get up, just puts his fingers to his mouth and whistles loudly. Coop cringes and covers his ears.

“Jesus, Special K,” Coop says. “What’s your problem?”

“Yep, that’s me. Jesus. Sit down and shut up,” Dave says, watching Danny creep down the hall with a confused look on his face. Danny seems to think that the instructions apply to him as well, because he sits next to Casey on the couch without asking a single question. 

“Special K, you know we don’t really have to have intra-dorm fire drills, that was just a joke!” Ty says as he comes out of his room. “Uh, I’ll just stand here while you tell us what’s going on.” Casey, for his part, just shrinks in a little, like he’d rather be anywhere else. 

“So, guys,” Dave says mildly, pointing at Casey, “that’s Casey.”

“Yeah,” Danny agrees. “It is.”

“He’s not your maid.” Dave looks at each of them, and Coop looks like he’s ready to bolt for the shower, completely disinterested in whatever Dave’s saying. “He’s also not your Clif bar supplier.”

“Oh, are those Casey’s?” Danny asks. “I thought that was something the football people left for us this year.”

Coop has the decency to look a little embarrassed. “Oh. Sorry about that. I’ll replace that one I just ate.”

“Aw, hell, Coop,” Ty pipes up. “Casey told me I could eat the peanut ones, but I know you’ve eaten more than one without peanuts in it.”

“I was gonna replace ’em!” Coop protests. “I just didn’t think about it last time I went to the store.”

“It’s okay,” Casey says. “It’s not a big deal, really. It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine, Case,” Dave says. “They shouldn’t eat anything with someone else’s name on it. If I ate Coop’s protein shake powder, he’d kick my ass. Even if I doubt whether he ever uses it.” He frowns again. “And anyway, leaving your shit around for Casey to pick up isn’t okay, either. He’s not here to clean your bathroom or wash your dishes.”

“No, it _is_ fine, David. Really,” Casey insists. “I don’t have much else to do all day, and all of you have so many things to do all day, and everybody’s tired when they come in, so…”

“I don’t expect him to do any of that stuff,” Coop says. “I didn’t ask him to do it.”

“No, but once you saw he was, you sure haven’t made an effort to do any of it for yourself,” Dave retorts. “And Case, it’s one thing if you want to do it, but they’re starting to assume that you will. That’s the difference.”

“I’ve left my towel on the floor a couple of times,” Ty admits, looking sheepish. “Sorry about that, Casey.”

“I thought we had a brownie,” Danny says. “Like the story my mom read to my sister’s Girl Scout troop.” He shrugs. “I mean, why not, right? Our dorm could have been built over a fairy ring or something.”

“He _could_ be a brownie,” Coop says, snickering. 

Dave glares at Coop. “Coop, shut up. Casey, I know their side stinks but can you just… kick their stuff towards their rooms?”

Casey nods his head rapidly. “Okay, David.”

“We’ll end up with a barricade keeping them in,” Ty muses. “But might be good for them. I promise not to leave my towel in the bathroom floor. I make no promises for my bedroom, but no one else sees in there, except my lady.” He looks over at Coop and grins. “Something Coop doesn’t have to worry about, having a lady over.”

“I could bring a lady over if I wanted to,” Coop says. “I don’t ’cause of the rest of you.” He scowls at Ty. “I don’t see why Casey cares if the dorm’s a mess or not. He’s moving out soon anyway, and then he can keep his own dorm clean if that’s how he wants it.”

“Cause he’s not our brownie, Coop,” Danny says. “Take off your hat.”

“Huh?” Coop asks.

“Your hat!” Danny reaches over and grabs it, then throws it to Ty. “This requires a hat sacrifice!”

Ty bolts from the room with the hat, and Dave can hear the lock on Ty’s door clicking as Coop chases after him and pounds on the door, shouting, “Hey! Gimme my hat back you douche!”

“Nope!” Ty calls through the door. “Hat sacrifice rules require you be hatless for no less than twenty-four hours and no more than forty-eight!”

“I’ve got another goddamn hat, now gimme that one back before I kick the shit out of you!” Coop yells. 

“Nope!” Danny says cheerfully from the hallway. “You took your eye off one opponent, Coop. Shouldn’t’ve done that!”

Dave looks at Casey and shrugs. “The hat sacrifice method of punishment.”

“I really didn’t mind, David,” Casey says quietly. “It was just so messy and it bothered me.”

“Like I said, problem was Coop starting to expect it.” Dave shrugs. “And now he’ll be less douchey for a day, since he won’t have his hat.”

 

**Saturday, August 16th, 2014: Field Residence Hall, Atlanta — Casey**

“So, Michael Murphy. That sounds like it could be a nice name,” Casey says, hoisting the box he’s carrying a little higher. “He could be nice. Right? You have good roommates, so I could be lucky, too.”

David nods. “Sounds Irish. Can’t be too bad, right? I mean you had to fill out one of those profile things.”

“Well, I did, but Mi— I mean, I’ve heard they don’t always really look at that, is all,” Casey says, interrupting himself before he breaks the unspoken Miles ban. “That’s just what I heard.”

“As long as he doesn’t blast music twenty-four hours and never shower, you should be fine,” David says, holding the door open when they reach it.

“Thanks,” Casey says, walking into the building and up a flight of stairs, then down the hall. “Okay. Here it is,” he says, taking a deep breath. “I guess, um.” He tries to balance the box under one arm while he fumbles in his pocket for the key, finally just setting the box down entirely to unlock the door and swing it open. The right half of the room is empty except for furniture, but the left half is occupied by boxes, stacks of clothes, and a pudgy boy with short blond dreadlocks. “Um. Hello?”

“Yo,” says the boy, presumably Michael Murphy. “I took the left. Hope that’s cool.”

“Oh. That’s fine,” Casey says, glancing over at David. “I’m Casey. This is my, um. Friend. David.”

David raises a hand as he sets his boxes down. “Michael, right?”

“Nah. Murph,” Murph says. “Hey. Are you a football player?” He points at David’s shirt. “Cool.”

“It pays the bills,” David says dryly.

“Cool, yeah. That’s cool,” Murph repeats. “Yeah, I love football. That’s really cool. You’re his friend, huh? You guys hang out a lot? ’Cause that’s cool, y’know, if you want to hang out here.”

Casey resists the urge to set down his box and just slowly back out of the room and all the way back to David’s dorm. Also grabbing David by the hand and dragging him back there with him. “Um. The room’s kind of small, so.”

“You should be sure and come to the games,” David says. Casey cuts his eyes over to David and makes a face that he hopes adequately communicates ‘no, he shouldn’t come to the games ever ever’ or something similar.

“Yeah. I’ll do that, that’d be cool,” Murph says, nodding. “I used to play football in high school.”

“Yeah? What position?” David asks.

“Yeah, I uh. Threw. That’s what I did,” Murph says, and Casey turns his head to the side so he can roll his eyes. 

“Ah.” David nods and winces behind Murph’s back. “Case, you want to go get another load?”

“Sure!” Casey says, probably too enthusiastically. “It’s, um. Nice to meet you, Murph. It might be a while, because, um. David’s dorm. It’s kind of a long walk.”

“Cool,” Murph says, already apparently losing interest in the conversation and picking up an iPad from the top of the dresser. “See ya.”

Casey drops the box at the foot of his bed and then does back right out of the room, David following him. As soon as Casey closes the door behind him, he turns to David and says, “I did _not_ get a Ty.”

David winces and shakes his head. “No. I think you should tell him you got my name wrong. It’s actually, um. Tony. Tony Smith.”

“I’m _so_ sorry! I mean, he _threw_? He was a _thrower_? David, that’s not a position!” Casey sighs loudly. “I didn’t even get a Coop. I just got a _Murph_.”

“Yeah.” David nods slowly. “Maybe talk to Coach on speaker a few times and have her loudly talk about her quarterback. At least he might learn the position names. You’re doing a public service.”

“The room is really small.”

“Luckily there’s no rule about having to stay in the dorm to study or anything,” David points out. “Just sleep and shower and stuff.”

“I’m afraid to sleep now,” Casey says. “He seems like somebody who might murder people in their sleep, don’t you think? Maybe I should just live in the Lemon this year.”

“Nah, I think he’s too lazy to murder someone, Case. He was too lazy to learn his position name. It’s probably good he wasn’t placed on the fourth floor, or he’d never have made it to his dorm.”

“I wish we were on the fourth floor,” Casey mutters. 

David laughs. “Just remember. You don’t have to log a specific number of hours there.”

“Zero hours. I’ll log zero hours. I’ll sleep in the hall. Maybe Danny could ask Brittany for pointers on that,” Casey says. “Didn’t she used to sleep in the hall somewhere?”

“I don’t think she ever did, really,” David says slowly. “But you could still ask.”

“I can study in your dorm, right?”

David grins. “Sure. You’ll be the envy of Murph, Case. The very envy.”

 

**Wednesday, August 20th, 2014: Georgia Tech campus, Atlanta — Dave**

“Be sure to check out the sign-up sheets for various events, and don’t forget Welcome Week activities, all next week,” Carla says to the group assembled for Pride Alliance. “And it’s great to see so many freshmen here already.”

Dave turns to Casey and nods sagely. “That’s you, Case.”

“Yes. Definitely me,” Casey agrees. “I’m definitely a freshman and I am definitely here.”

“So sign up for _all_ the events,” Dave continues, grinning. 

“Okay,” Casey says. “Sure, that sounds good.”

“I was kidding, Case, they don’t really expect people to do all of them,” Dave explains, standing up. “But hey, I guess this was weird for you, not leading a meeting or collecting paperwork?”

“If by ‘weird’ you mean ‘a lot less stressful’, then yes,” Casey says. “Nobody ever listens and I always had to shout things at them. This was better. I could just sit and listen. It was nice.”

“Careful, I might tell them you have leadership experience,” Dave threatens.

Casey shrugs. “If you think you should,” he says. “I can do things, if they need people to do things.”

“I was joking again.” Dave nudges Casey. “You want any of their free food?”

“Do they have cookies?”

“Oh, yeah,” Dave nods. “They always have cookies.”

“Hmm. Then I think… we should put some in our pockets and then go get coffee,” Casey says. “That’s what we should do.”

“We should still be able to get some coffee at the student center,” Dave agrees. “But I might just eat my cookies.”

“You _would_ ,” Casey says. “I’m saving mine for later.”

“I’m going to steal Coop’s enchiladas later,” Dave explains. “Or maybe they’re Danny’s.” He shrugs. “So cookies now, enchiladas later.” He picks up three and takes a bite from one. 

“Sounds perfectly reasonable,” Casey says. He picks up a few cookies, but doesn’t actually put them into his pocket. He nibbles a sugar cookie and looks thoughtful. “These taste exactly like the ones from the center.”

“Kroger,” Dave explains.

“Ah. So they are the same. Makes sense.”

“Yeah.” Dave nods and heads out the door, towards the student center. “In about three weeks, there will be one of the freshmen who realizes I’m on the team, by the way. That’s what happened last year. First year it wasn’t just freshmen. That’s always amusing. Or something, at any rate.”

“Should I pretend I think they’re crazy?” Casey asks. “That could be fun. I could be all, no! What are you talking about? That’s crazy!”

Dave laughs. “Tell ’em I’m Tony Smith. Someone might even believe you.” He opens the door to the student center and walks towards the coffee, getting two of the smaller sized cups and heading towards the register. “I always like walking back after,” Dave explains to Casey as he pays.

“I tell everybody you’re Tony Smith,” Casey says. “Murph didn’t believe me, but I still told him.”

“I think if you told Murph the dorm was burning down, he’d wait to see flames before evacuating,” Dave points out, heading back outside and handing Casey his coffee as they walk past the Shaft. “Doubting Murph.”

“I know it hasn’t even been a week yet, but I still kind of hate that room,” Casey confesses. “Murph complains a lot. He talks a lot. I’m only there for sleeping, and he _still_ talks and complains the whole time. I don’t want people to talk to me while I’m sleeping. I just want them to leave me alone so I can sleep!” He takes a sip of his coffee. “Well, you can talk to me, but not other people.”

“Maybe Murph will fail out after the first semester,” Dave says, then feels slightly guilty. “Not that I’m saying you should wish for it. Just statistically speaking, some people do. And Murph could be one of them. Through no fault of ours or any wishing we might or might not do.”

“He says I’m noisy.”

Dave snorts. “Murph is also, perhaps, delusional.”

“No, he says I’m noisy in my sleep,” Casey says. “He says I bother him. He says ‘do you ever shut up in your sleep or is it like this all the time?’ but since I don’t know what he’s talking about, I just told him yes.”

“Yeah, clearly you’re aware of what you’re doing when you’re asleep, Case. Everyone else is,” Dave laughs. “Murph sounds like an idiot.” Casey probably does make noise, Dave has to acknowledge, and maybe it’s worse, or maybe Murph likes to complain; either one seems likely. No one complained while Casey was sleeping on the couch, though granted after awhile it seemed like Dave fell asleep sitting up every other night at least. “Oh, and you have to stay over tonight, apparently, because Danny desperately needs a marathon of _Animal Walk_ on the Wii,” Dave adds, still grinning. “You’re the only one that plays with him, Case. You know you don’t _have_ to.”

“I’m the only one with no dignity,” Casey says. “It’s sad, but true. He makes me be the little orange kitten every time, too. I’m not sure how I feel about that, but it’s hard to tell him no.”

Dave nods as they stop and wait for the light to change so they can cross North Avenue. “It’s just plain hard to tell him no about anything. Except stealing enchiladas, that I can do without feeling bad, at least.”

“It’s sort of funny how you got mad at them for eating my Clif bars, but you steal their enchiladas,” Casey says. 

“But they aren’t labeled,” Dave explains. “No name. That’s why I can’t remember if they’re Coop’s or Danny’s. No label, they’re fair game.” The light changes and they start across the street, but halfway there, the red hand starts flashing, and Dave grabs Casey’s hand as they run the rest of the distance. 

When they get to the other side, Casey is laughing. “Thanks! I could have died!”

Dave shrugs and fights a grin. “Just the duties of an Eagle Scout.”

“Very noble. I bet you have all the badges.”

“Three of them are about citizenship. Boy Scouts really want you to be a citizen with citizenship skills.”

“So what are citizenship skills exactly?” Casey asks, holding Dave’s hand more tightly. “Crossing streets and voting and, um. America things?”

“City hall, international law,” Dave says. He shrugs. “I’m well-prepared for life as a citizen, I guess you could say.”

“Yes, that’s definitely something I would say,” Casey agrees. “That David, he’s very well-prepared for life as a citizen.”

Dave nods. “It’s the first thing people think of when they see me.”

 

**Thursday, August 21st, 2014: North Avenue South dorm, Atlanta — Casey**

Casey wakes up to the sound of light, but rhythmic knocking on David’s door. He’s a little too warm, but otherwise perfectly comfortable where he’s curled up against David’s side in the bed, and that was definitely the best night’s sleep he’s had in he can’t even remember how long. Danny was still trying to get his collie across the Rockies at two in the morning, and when David suggested Casey just crash in his room, it’s not like Casey argued. 

The only bad part was resisting the almost-overwhelming desire to kiss David, but since they haven’t worked out when ‘not yet’ turns into ‘now’, Casey contented himself with holding David’s hand for most of the night. 

The knocking continues, a little louder now but still in the same odd rhythm. “David?” Casey says softly. “Somebody’s knocking.”

“Mmm?” David snorts. “What is it, Danny?” he mumbles a minute later.

“Oh, is it Danny?” Casey asks. He sits up and rubs his eyes. 

“Can I take Casey with me this morning?” Danny asks. “You think he’d want to go? I can’t remember when he left last night, I was going to ask then.”

Casey laughs quietly. “Where does he want to take me?” he whispers to David. 

“Cats,” David whispers back. “Cat shelter.”

“Why does he want to take me to a cat shelter?” Casey asks. “Should I tell him I’m here?”

“Guess he thinks you’d like it.” David shrugs and sits up. “Sure.”

“Hi, Danny,” Casey calls out.

“Oh, hey Casey!” Danny sounds excited. “You want to go?” There’s a shuffling sound and Danny hisses something at someone else. 

“To see cats? Sure, I guess.”

“Awesome!” Danny sounds downright gleeful. “We’ll leave in thirty minutes, so we can get breakfast on the way there!”

“Sure. That sounds good,” Casey says, then he lowers his voice and asks David, “Does he go to the cat shelter a lot?”

“Every week,” David whispers back. “You should probably plan on leaving in fifteen minutes. He gets really excited.”

“Do I still have any clothes here? I think I left a shirt somewhere.” Casey stretches and looks at the clock. “It’s early. Did you want to go back to sleep? I can go ahead and go.”

“I’ll get some stuff done, probably. Get some breakfast before it’s picked over,” David replies. “And yeah, there’s a T-shirt or two of yours.”

“Okay, I’ll find one,” Casey says. He starts to climb over David’s legs to get off the bed, but he loses his balance and puts his hand down to steady himself, realizing almost immediately he has his entire hand splayed across David’s thigh. The heat creeps into Casey’s cheeks and he freezes momentarily, looking up at David with wide eyes. “Um. I’m. Um.”

Dave laughs for a second. “You could’ve asked me to move, Case,” he says, sitting up and grabbing Casey’s shoulders without looking straight at Casey. “Though neither one of us is that great at balance, I guess.”

“Yes,” Casey says faintly. “That’s true.” He manages to unfreeze and slowly pulls his hand away from David’s thigh. “Sorry.” He’s not sorry his hand was on David’s thigh; he’s just sorry he’s not sure where to go from there.

“One day we should take adult… gymnastics, maybe?” David suggests. “Isn’t that a balance thing?”

“Um.” Casey starts to giggle. “That sounds, um.” He slides to the floor. “I’ll go find my shirt now.” Two of his shirts are actually neatly folded and stacked on top of David’s dresser, so Casey turns his back to David and pulls the shirt he slept in over his head, putting on one of the clean shirts. 

“Are you ready, Casey?” Danny’s voice asks as he knocks again.

Casey turns around towards David. David blinks as Casey turns around, almost like he’s been staring at something for too long. It takes a moment before he shakes his head slightly. “Well, I told you,” David says with a small smile. “Have fun.”

“It’s a cat shelter,” Casey says. “So, you know. It’s a cat shelter.”

“It’s also Danny.”

“So it could go either way, then!” Casey says. “I’ll see you later. Have a good day.”

Danny knocks again. “Casey, you want McDonald’s or Burger King?”

“Whatever will make the cats less likely to attack me!” Casey calls back, grinning at David. 

 

**Saturday, August 23rd, 2014: North Avenue South dorm, Atlanta — Dave**

Casey decides to go rock climbing on Saturday afternoon, and Dave heads to the basement of the dorm to use their treadmill for a run. He puts his earbuds in and lets the music play, falling into an easy rhythm. He's tried to encourage Casey to try out a lot of different groups, but Casey's taken it to an entirely new level than what Dave had expected. 

It's been easy to slip Casey in with the rest of his Georgia Tech life. Dave sort of always knew it would be, the two of them just falling into similar patterns to their old ones, working around practices and classes and clubs. There's nothing really left for Dave to miss about Lima, except for Paul, and they still talk about as regularly, Dave has to admit, as they did when Dave lived in the same house. 

There's also the lingering 'not yet' between Dave and Casey. Dave can't help but feel like 'not yet' shouldn't mean 'as soon as we're both in Atlanta', and part of him doesn't want to start everything at the beginning of the season, knowing now how hard most of the fall semester will be, between studio time, classes, and practice. Mostly, though, David feels like 'not yet' should mean that there is a moment when they realize, simultaneously, that 'not yet' has suddenly become 'now', and perhaps that's foolish of him. He does think there will be at least a few seconds where everything will be clear, with no questions about whether or not 'then' is the time. 

Dave knows the rest of his roommates are waiting. Ty hasn't said anything yet; Danny thought he and Casey had 'finally' gotten together on Wednesday night. He can't explain easily why it's still 'not yet', but after waiting this long, he supposes it boils down to wanting everything to be as close to perfect as it can get.

 

**Monday, August 25th, 2014: Agnes Scott College, Decatur — Casey**

“It’ll be fun, trust me!” Coop says. “I’ll get you back before Special K’s home from the studio, anyway.”

“I guess it _is_ better than sitting around my dorm room with Murph,” Casey concedes, and Coop pats him on the back hard, grinning.

“See? It’ll be great!”

For the record, it is _not_ great. It’s a meet n’ greet social at Agnes Scott, which turns out to be an all girls school, and Casey can’t initially figure out why Coop would want to bring him of all people to a school full of girls. Casey figures it out pretty quickly, though, when a pair of girls approaches him and Coop, and one of the girls actually reaches out and _touches_ his hair. Casey flinches, then realizes he’s probably being rude, and settles for trying to twist away as politely as possible.

“Your hair is such a gorgeous color,” one of the girls says. “Is it natural?”

Casey nods. “Yes. It just grows like that.”

“I’m so jealous,” the other girl—the one who touched his hair—says. “I’ve tried, but it’s hard to get a natural-looking red that doesn’t fade.”

“So where do you two go to school?” the first girl asks Casey, but before Casey can answer, Coop cuts in.

“We go to Tech, where my _very_ good friend Casey here is a member of the Pride Alliance,” Coop says, over enunciating ‘Pride’ and ‘Alliance’. The girl who touched Casey’s hair looks a little disappointed, and Casey decides that he is going to encourage David to steal _all_ of Coop’s enchiladas as soon as he gets back to campus. And possibly set them on fire. And possibly set _Coop_ on fire.

“But you know, as luck would have it, I’m not a member of the Pride Alliance,” Coop continues. “I’m actually a football player.”

Casey resists the urge to remind Coop that David is both a football player and a member of Pride Alliance. Instead he rolls his eyes and watches Coop gradually annoy the girls enough that they leave. Once they’re gone, Coop drags him to another part of the room and they start over with new girls. This goes on for almost two hours before Casey finally just throws his arms up and makes a frustrated noise.

“Coop!” Casey says.

“Fine, fine. We’ll go,” Coop grumbles. “This place is dead, anyway.”

Casey assumes that means Coop didn’t get any dates or even any phone numbers, so at least that’s some small measure of satisfaction as they drive back to Tech campus. When they get back up to David’s dorm room, David is already back, sitting in a chair with his laptop.

“Coop used me to pick up girls!” Casey announces. “And it didn’t work!”

David snorts, almost like he’s choking. “How did he use you to attempt to pick up girls?” he finally asks.

“He used my hair as bait! As _girl bait_ , David!” Casey says. “I’m _girl bait_! Who knew?”

“But he still couldn’t get any girls?” David says, sounding almost pleased.

“Nope. I’m such good girl bait, they liked me better,” Casey says, and Coop glowers.

“That’s not really how it happened,” Coop starts to explain. 

David snorts and waves his hand over his head at Coop. “Nah. I figure I know how it happened. You still can’t get any action, even at a women’s college accompanied by a gay guy. That’s just sad, Coop. Sad.”

“Shut up,” Coop grumbles, stomping into his room and slamming the door behind him.

“On the plus side,” Casey says. “If I’d actually needed any girls’ numbers, I’m pretty sure I could have gotten them.”


	18. September 2014

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Universe, circumstances, and Miles Brown conspire.

**Monday, September 1st, 2014: Old neighborhoods, Atlanta — Dave**

Dave makes sure he has his camera and some snacks before he tells Casey that they’re leaving. “C’mon, let’s go, Case.”

“Okay!” Casey says. “Should we bring an umbrella? My weather app said it was going to rain.”

“Nah, it always says that. Just in case we get rain, they can say it was predicted,” Dave answers, heading out the door.

“Oh, that makes sense,” Casey says, following along behind Dave. “I bet they hate to be wrong.”

“Especially since they so often are,” Dave says wryly. “Ty told me about a time when he was really little that all the schools cancelled ahead of a snowstorm, only it didn’t really snow until after the school day would have been over.”

“I still think it’s funny that they cancel school over a little bit of snow. That’s so _weird_.”

“No plows to deal with it.” Dave shrugs and puts on his sunglasses as they head outside. “It’d be nice if we could trade some of these 90°+ days for a few more snow days, though.”

Casey pulls out a pair of sunglasses with thick yellow plastic frames and puts them on. Dave raises his eyebrows and snorts a laugh. Casey scowls, but the glasses are so big that most of the expression is lost. 

“Oh, hush. They’re my sunglasses for football games. They’re the best!” Casey insists. “School spirit and things.”

“And things. Right.” Dave shrugs again and unlocks the truck. “As long as they don’t make us start wearing them, I guess,” he adds with a grin.

“You wish you had sunglasses this great.”

“Hmmm. Nah.” Dave shakes his head. “But what would I do with two pairs of sunglasses anyway?”

“Keep one in the truck for in case you forgot yours inside,” Casey says, like that’s both the obvious and most practical answer.

“Inevitably I’d end up with two pairs in the truck or no pairs in the truck,” Dave says, shaking his head. “You want to get some lunch?”

“Sure! Arby’s would be good.”

“You just want a jamocha shake,” Dave says, heading towards the Arby’s. “I see how it is.” 

Casey laughs. “That could possibly, maybe be just a little bit true. Well, and those mozzarella thingies.”

“Aww, no jalapeno poppers?” Dave teases. 

“I am widely known for my love of peppers, David,” Casey says, very seriously. 

“Exactly. Jalapeno poppers and maybe some chipotle sauce for your sandwich?”

“Why stop there? I bet we could get those ghost peppers at one of the three billion grocery stores around here!”

“I wonder if they look enough like jalapenos that we could trick anyone,” Dave muses, pulling into the parking lot and shaking his head at the line. 

“Danny might just eat them without us saying anything, but that would be mean,” Casey says. “It’s not fair to trick Danny.”

“Okay, trick anyone who isn’t Danny,” Dave amends. “You know what you want? Besides the shake and mozzarella, I mean.”

“No, there’s nothing else in this world besides jamocha shakes and mozzarella,” Casey says. “If there were, though, I’d probably get a chicken salad sandwich.”

“Chicken salad sandwich, mozzarella, and jamocha shake, check,” Dave says, grinning. They finally pull up and Dave orders, which apparently was the hold-up, since they get their food quickly. “I’m working on a project,” Dave explains as he gets his food out. “There has to be a way to eat a beef and cheddar in the car without making a mess.”

“No, that’s crazy talk,” Casey says. “I’m sorry, but you’ve entered into this project with unrealistic expectations, and you’re doomed to failure.”

“I refuse to give up until my sample size is large,” Dave retorts. 

“Maybe it’s a joint effort kind of thing. You need someone to feed it to you.”

“But then I can’t make my triumphant webpage of the solo method that eliminates mess!”

“I guess lonely people just can’t eat beef and cheddar in the car, David. It’s sad, but it’s just how it is. All alone and beef and cheddar all over the place,” Casey says. “It’s sad.”

“It’s why I have to keep struggling,” Dave says. “I have to make their days just a bit brighter.”

“That’s very noble of you. They’re lucky you’re fighting on their behalf.”

Dave makes a fist and shakes it twice, laughing. “That’s me.” He has to detour twice due to ‘Labor Day events’ but eventually finds a place to park. “We can finish eating before we get out.”

Casey nods over his jamocha shake and holds up a mozzarella stick in salute. 

“Now I’m wishing I had cheese,” Dave says mock-sadly. “Everyone needs cheese in a stick form.” He looks down and wrinkles his nose. “This was attempt number twenty-three, for the record. Another failure, sadly. At least they give out enough napkins for beef and cheddars.”

“Here. I have enough cheese for two people,” Casey says, holding the mozzarella stick out in front of Dave’s mouth. “Well, as long as those two people don’t plan to eat nothing but cheese.”

Dave laughs and takes a bite from the mozzarella. “When Ty took you to Whole Foods, did you see all the cheese there? Also the olives. I never knew there were so many kinds of olives.”

“If people in Ohio knew about all those kinds of cheese and olives, they’d mass migrate to Atlanta,” Casey says. “Really, we should make sure they never find out.”

“Maybe there’s a Whole Foods in Indiana and they can head there instead.”

“People of Ohio!” Casey says in a loud announcer voice. “Please proceed directly to Indiana!”

Dave laughs and wipes off his hands, then picks up his camera. “Ready?”

“Sure! Let’s go, um. Take some pictures, I guess?”

“You should keep your sunglasses on and pose in some contortionist position,” Dave suggests as they get out of the truck. “And then we’ll tell people it was a candid.”

“Um. No.”

“Or you could take the sunglasses off,” Dave says casually, adjusting for the light. “I just thought the contrast of contortionist and sunglasses would be—” He cuts himself off and snaps a picture of Casey looking at him, then grins.

“David, noooooo!” Casey puts both arms over his face. “No fair!”

Dave laughs. “I promise it didn’t steal your soul.”

“No, you did, I’m sure you did,” Casey says. “Give it back.”

“If it did, _I_ wouldn’t have it. The camera would.”

“Well, you have the camera. It didn’t do it on its own! Just… poke around in the camera until you find it,” Casey says. “And delete that picture!”

“There’s not a ‘return soul’ setting,” Dave says. “Sorry, Case.” He laughs again and looks around, making sure he’s in the right place. “Okay, there,” he says, pointing. 

“Oh,” Casey says quietly, looking where David is pointing. “From the photograph I like!”

Dave nods. “Yeah. I mean, different season, but.”

“It’s still really pretty,” Casey says. “Were you going to take more pictures?”

“Maybe a couple, yeah.” Dave has to adjust the aperture again, and he looks up and shakes his head. “Light’s shifting.”

“Could we sit here for a little while?” Casey asks. “Maybe the light’ll hold still then.”

Dave nods and sits beside Casey, taking a few pictures, and Casey pushes his sunglasses up on top of his head as the sunlight fades. Casey slips his hand into Dave’s and squeezes once, smiling shyly up at Dave. 

“Hi,” Casey says.

Dave returns the smile, and he can’t help but think maybe, maybe this is a moment that becomes ‘now’, because they aren’t just doing normal, everyday things. He leans a little closer, trying to decide if he should say anything or just kiss Casey, and then, a split second later, Dave realizes they are wet.

Very wet.

The rain is pouring over them, the reason the sunlight was fading, and Dave jumps at the surprise of it. Casey squawks, “David, your camera!” and stands up, still holding Dave’s hand and pulling him in the direction of the truck. They run for the truck, climbing in and shutting the door, and Dave sits there blinking for a moment.

“That was, um. Unexpected,” he finally says.

“I guess the weather app was right this time,” Casey says. 

“I guess so,” Dave says ruefully. “And here you thought you had a day off from swimming.”

Casey gives Dave an enigmatic look, then smiles faintly. “Yeah. I guess so.”

“We should probably go back to campus and change,” Dave says lamely, looking at how soaked they both are.

“Probably,” Casey agrees. “We’ll watch a movie instead or something like that.”

“Yeah,” Dave says, nodding a little. “And if we’re lucky,” he adds, starting the truck, “Coop or Danny won’t try to convince us to change the movie to what they’d pick.” He pulls back into the street, deciding the best way back to campus, and he glances at Casey while they’re at a stop sign. It would have been a good moment, absent the rain, and maybe he should have kissed him anyway, but he’s pretty sure they aren’t a whoever-Sparks book, so Dave sighs. 

He’ll wait for another moment. He’s pretty sure, now, that at least there will be one. 

 

**Saturday, September 6th, 2014: Bobby Dodd Stadium, Atlanta — Casey**

Joining the SWARM seemed like a practical decision from the perspective of making sure Casey had tickets and rides to all the football games, but it also means he has license to scream his head off at all the football games, which means it’s absolutely the _right_ decision. Casey even talks his new friend Bill—Bill Võ, also from the swim team—into joining with him, so he has someone vaguely familiar to sit with.

Everybody jostles for a seat, though Casey quickly figures out that the whole jostling process is somewhat pointless, because nobody actually sits for any length of time. Mostly they stand and yell and hold up posters, everybody wearing matching yellow shirts.

When the offense takes the field, Bill leans over and says, “Which one of those Smiths is your friend?”

“Neither of them,” Casey says. “His name isn’t really Tony Smith. That’s just what I decided to tell people until I’m sure they aren’t going to be Murphs.”

“Ah, alright then,” Bill says. “So which one is—”

Casey interrupts Bill to scream, “That’s right, David! Put him on his ass!”

“So his name is David?” Bill asks.

Casey grins at him. “Yes, his name is David.”

The guy on the other side of Casey elbows him and then gestures with a yellow container. “Hey, do you guys want some body paint?”

Casey eyes the container. “I think I’ll pass this time. I’ll work my way up to paint later.” Bill also waves away the paint, and then Casey watches a guy from UNC bounce off of David and hit the ground. Casey jumps to his feet again, shouting as he goes, “On his ass, David! Whoooo!”

 

**Monday, September 8th, 2014: North Avenue South dorm, Atlanta — Dave**

Dave is trying to decide between a small frozen pizza or a couple of frozen burritos to get him through the next problem set when he hears the lock almost rattling, the sound of a key scratching against the metal doorknob. Dave frowns and lets the freezer door shut before going to the door and opening it. 

“Case?” Casey’s white as a sheet and trembling a little, with his eyes wide. 

“David, I’m _very_ concerned about the monkeys!” Casey says. “You didn’t warn me about the whole monkey thing.”

“What?” Dave asks. “What monkey thing? Are they doing a production of _The Wizard of Oz_ or something?”

Casey shakes his head rapidly. “No, David. No. The Yerkes monkeys. The ones with the disease. David it’s _bad_ , it’s so, so, so bad!”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” David admits, speaking slowly. “C’mon in, anyway. Wouldn’t the CDC take care of any diseases, though?”

Casey inches his way into the room, shaking his head again. “No. The CDC’s involved. They’re helping cover it up and paying for the research and… and _David_! Did you know that the reason they filmed _The Walking Dead_ in Atlanta was to desensitize people to the appearance of zombies so there wouldn’t be any panic until it was too late to escape?”

“Casey,” Dave says, concerned. “Where did you hear all of this?”

“I went to a club. I wanted to try all the clubs.”

“Uh-huh. What club?”

“Students for Scientific Truth!” Casey says, sounding increasingly agitated. “Because there’s a _massive_ cover-up, David!”

“Huh.” Dave raises his voice. “Ty, Coop, either of you heard of this ‘Students for Scientific Truth’?”

“Are those the tin-foil people?” Ty calls back.

“They’re the crazies that meet in the basement of the French building,” Coop shouts. “Special K, you thinking about getting you a conspiracy theory?”

“Casey went to one of their meetings and they got him all worked up about monkeys,” Dave explains, walking back towards the television and couch, where Ty is not-really watching. “Yerkes or something.”

“They had _proof_!” Casey insists. “Slides and videos and all these stacks and stacks of research. It had _official logos_ on it!”

“Sit down, Case,” Dave says. “It’s easy to get logos, though.”

Casey edges towards the sofa, possibly expecting the sudden appearance of one of the conspiracy monkeys. “It looked really real. Really, really real. Those monkeys, they get loose all the time! And the CDC is helping cover it up!”

“Casey, those people like to rile everybody up. Yerkes and the CDC aren’t really connected except for being near Emory.” Ty shrugs. “If it were really happening, some reporter would have jumped on all that evidence.”

“It’s being _obfuscated_ , obviously,” Casey says, a little defensively. “One of the guys at the meeting works in one of the labs on campus. He says he saw all the paperwork for _human trials_ , and David. They aren’t even getting consent, they’re just going to give it to people, so you shouldn’t get the flu shot on campus, okay? Don’t ever do that!”

“Did he have any evidence of what he saw?” Dave says skeptically. 

“He couldn’t smuggle it out of the lab because there are cameras everywhere,” Casey says. “It was really scary. Slides, David. _Slides!_ It was just like the Rage virus in _28 Days Later_.”

“Could he even prove he worked in a lab?” Ty asks.

Coop wanders towards the sofa, shaking his head and laughing. “Wait, was it that same guy with the ‘they’re using monkeys to breed a brain disease’ fliers? He was singing that same song two years ago. I sat through part of one of those meetings once.”

“Well, I didn’t ask him to prove he worked in a lab,” Casey says. “But he didn’t really let anybody else talk. Also, they didn’t even have snacks.”

“No one at that meeting would ever drink except from his or her personal flask!” Ty says with a laugh. “Meeting of a bunch of Mad-Eyes.”

“It’s because of the nanotechnology in the fluoride in the water,” Casey says. “But I didn’t think that part sounded like it could be true. I think the science behind that claim is suspect. But the _monkeys_ , David!” He starts to tremble again. “It was horrible. You should have seen the video. And the _slides_!”

“Aw, Casey,” Coop says. “You got yourself snookered.”

“It does sound a little suspect,” Dave admits.

“Seriously, I can’t believe you bought any of that bullshit!” Coop continues. “Hell, I don’t even think Danny’d believe that stuff.”

“There were… slides,” Casey says in a small voice. “Real glass slides. It seemed… serious. Because of the slides.”

“But come on! Zombie monkeys?” Coop shakes his head. “You got all freaked out over zombie monkeys?”

“Shut up, Coop,” Ty says, reaching over and knocking Coop’s hat off. “Is it time for another hat sacrifice?”

“Aw, come on, Ty,” Coop grumbles, picking up his hat and cramming it back onto his head. “You know I’m right. Zombie monkeys and secret experiments? Glass slides in the French building basement? How stupid d’you gotta be to buy into all that stuff?”

“Danny!” Ty bellows. “Hat time!”

Dave shrugs and stands up, knocking the hat Coop’s wearing off of him again. “Ty has spoken,” he says seriously.

“I’m not stupid,” Casey says quietly.

“No, you’re not,” Dave agrees, glaring at Coop. 

“What? I didn’t mean it like that!” Coop says, leaning down to pick up his hat again. Ty swipes it before he can reach it. “Hey! I’m just saying there’s no reason to get all worked up over some stupid conspiracy crap!”

“Dave,” Ty says pleasantly, “You and Casey should go down the hall while Danny and I deal with this.”

Dave holds back a snort and nods, grabbing Casey’s hand and pulling him down the hall to the sounds of Ty speaking calmly and Coop protesting. When they’re in Dave’s room, Dave locks the door and shakes his head. “Sorry.”

“It _sounded_ real,” Casey says softly. “There was all this paperwork and all these files, and they had color-coded tabs, and real glass slides.”

“And probably somewhere between one and five percent of it was true,” Dave says. “They just expanded on it.”

“Maybe I am stupid. It was just all so scary and they made it all seem really immediate.”

“They’re just the science equivalent of, I don’t know. Those preachers that ask for money. They didn’t ask you for any money, right?” Dave asks, suddenly feeling more alarmed.

“They wanted everybody to pay dues and to donate to fund the website, but I didn’t have any cash,” Casey says. “So I didn’t give them anything.”

“Good, good. Yeah, maybe don’t go back to that club?”

“I think that’s probably a good idea,” Casey says. “Sorry, David.”

Dave shrugs. “You want to study or get some rest?”

“It’s alright if I stay?”

“Yeah.” Dave nods. “Unless you were dying to see Murph?”

“I’m never dying to see Murph,” Casey says. “Did you have stuff you needed to do?”

“Just a problem set.”

“I can sit very quietly while you do your problem set?” Casey offers.

“Sure, if you don’t want to sleep,” Dave says, nodding and sitting down at his desk. Casey does sit quietly while Dave finishes his problem set, and once Dave finishes, he looks over at Casey. “Tired?” Casey nods. Dave heads towards the bathroom while Casey brushes his teeth before they swap, and then they go back into Dave’s room, the door locked and the lights out. 

Dave waits for Casey to climb into the bed, then lies down. He turns onto his side and exhales, closing his eyes. Casey seems to relax as they adjust the covers and the pillow, and Dave hopes the tin-foil hat people won’t have made Casey sleep too badly.

Casey slips his hand into Dave’s and moves closer. “Thank you, David,” he says, his voice just above a whisper.

Dave shrugs a little. “No problem,” he says softly. “You’ll sleep okay?” 

Casey nods and squeezes Dave’s hand. “Yes. I’m okay.”

Dave can feel his head moving in a slow, small nod, and he listens to Casey’s breathing as it gradually slows and his body relaxes even more against Dave’s. Dave sighs a little and reminds himself that the urge to punch the tin-foil hat people won’t actually do any good. With any luck, Casey’ll feel more calm in the morning. If he doesn’t, Dave can always make sure and add more weight while Coop’s bench pressing, assuming the hat sacrifice didn’t bring Coop around.

 

**Friday, September 12th, 2014: North Avenue South dorm — Ty**

“Everybody sit down!” Ty commands. “It’s Batman tonight, which has nothing to do with why I chose to order wings, but let’s pretend it does.”

“I’m ready!” Danny says from his bean bag. “Just hand me more paper towels when I ask, okay?”

Special K and Casey are already all cozy on the couch, and Ty still isn’t sure why they aren’t _together_ yet. He makes a note to sit down and have a talk with Special K about that if things don’t improve after another few weeks. Casey may not even be on the team, but it’s clear he needs someone to threaten Special K on his behalf when necessary. That’s what Ty’s big brother did, the first time Ty had a girlfriend. Ty had been afraid it would run his girlfriend off, but it hadn’t, and now years later, Ty sort of can appreciate it. 

Ty grabs the last bowl of wings and sets it on the table, then starts passing out paper towels. “Just put the extra somewhere,” he instructs.

“They’re not all hot, right?” Casey asks. “The wings, I mean. Not the paper towels.”

“Five varieties!” Ty answers proudly. “Two kinds of paper towels, actually.”

“How are there…” Special K trails off and shakes his head. “Nevermind, it’s probably not important.”

“These have a design. Those don’t,” Casey explains, pointing at the paper towels. “See?”

“Right, but _why_ I guess,” Special K says, still shaking his head. 

“We ran out of that huge thing from Costco that Danny brought,” Ty says. “Coop doesn’t like designs, I guess.”

“The ones with the flowers and shit on ’em cost fifty cents more!” Coop says. “I don’t need pictures of lavender on my paper towels. I just need them to soak stuff up.”

“He has a point, Ty,” Special K says. 

“I didn’t say I did or didn’t like the designs!” Ty says defensively, finally sitting down. “Just concentrate on how we’re going to eat all of this and watch all three movies without falling over on the field tomorrow.”

“We’ve managed every week so far,” Danny replies, looking confused.

“Ty, we could fall asleep in the middle of the field and still beat Wake Forest,” Coop says. “Casey could beat Wake Forest. By himself. We can send him out there in a helmet, he’d be fine.”

“Casey’d have trouble catching a ball after he threw it, though,” Special K says. “Case, you’d need a little help from Murph the thrower!”

“He throws. It’s a perfectly valid football position, I have been assured,” Casey says, straight-faced. “Me and Murph will play Wake Forest for you.”

“The heroes of the hour,” Ty says, dropping his voice slightly. “Letting the first and second string enjoy their movie night, despite the strict sanctions to be in the dorm by team curfew.” Ty laughs. “We are _in_ our dorm, well before team curfew!”

“Nobody’s even getting in any trouble,” Coop says. “It’s just Batman.”

“It is never _just_ Batman,” Danny says seriously, looking almost affronted. “It is _the_ Batman trilogy, Coop.”

“This is the definitive Joker,” Ty agrees. “They have to be considered for their, um. Cinematic something.”

“Catwoman’s real cinematic,” Coop says, grinning. “Kinda wish they’d done that movie in 3D.”

“Gentlemen, Coop’s imaginary girlfriend,” Ty jokes. “Hey, Danny, you going to Skype with Brittany tomorrow?”

“Yep!” Danny grins. “I sure am. Too bad Coop can’t Skype with someone.”

“Shut up, Danny. I could Skype with someone if I wanted to,” Coop says.

“Your Great-Uncle in Charlotte doesn’t count,” Special K retorts.

“Yeah, yeah. You aren’t Skyping anybody, either,” Coop grumbles. 

Ty’s pretty sure Coop means it more figuratively, but it sounds like he’s being literal, which is pretty damn funny. Plus it means Coop just admitted to what they all knew already, that he has no prospects in the dating game, even. 

“Well, now that we’ve reviewed Danny’s Skype habits, anyone need more wings before I start this Batman night up?” Ty asks.

“I need more wings!” Casey announces, handing his plate, which still has several wings, over to Special K. “I need a plate, too!”

Ty laughs. “I knew you’d be the one to eat all those spicy ones, Casey. I knew it.”

“It’s true. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. I even bit David’s finger because it had wing sauce on it.”

 

**Wednesday, September 17th, 2014: Georgia Tech campus — Casey**

Pride Alliance is the most crowded Casey’s seen it so far, which means he’s uncomfortably close to people he doesn’t know and probably doesn’t want to know. The snack table seems to be a major point of congregation, which is unfortunate, because that’s also exactly where Casey is trying to get, since he’s the one who takes up a little less room and could in theory get through the crowd better than David could. After multiple attempts to get to the cookies, Casey finally gives up and returns to David cookie-less.

“I’m a hunter-gatherer failure,” Casey tells David. “If this were ten-thousand years ago, we’d be dead right now, probably.”

David laughs. “If this were ten-thousand years ago, neither of us would even know what a cookie was.”

“Well, that’s true, but if the cookies were, hmm. Wildebeests or oxen or those deer with the really huge antlers, the mega-something. I’d fail at hunting those, too.”

“Luckily, we don’t have to hunt or gather.”

“Except cookies, which I didn’t,” Casey says. “Why is it so crowded?”

“Welcome Week’s over, freshmen getting settled into a routine, people coming back from co-op assignments remembering to put the meetings back in their schedule,” David says, shrugging a little. “It won’t be this crowded again until December.”

“I don’t like it. They should all leave.”

David laughs. “And how is it decided who should leave and who gets to stay?”

“The ones between me and the cookies must go,” Casey declares. “And the ones who bumped into me. Also the really loud ones.” He thinks it over for a second or two, then adds, “Pretty much I’d be happy with it just being you, me, and maybe one or two of those guys over there.”

“Not so much a meeting at that point,” David points out.

“Not so much other people eating all the cookies, either,” Casey counters. “They can come back next week. Half of them can.”

“You didn’t really want to try all the clubs,” David says, sounding almost suspicious. “You just wanted to try all of the cookies.”

“Now, that’s not— well, okay, that might be a little bit true. Maybe.” Casey shrugs. “Some of the clubs don’t have food at all, though.”

David laughs. “Are you going back to any of those?”

“Rock climbing. That’s about it. I’m not going back to some of the ones that _did_ have snacks, though, either,” Casey says. “It’s not just about the snacks.”

“Fair enough,” David says, nodding a little. 

“Rock climbing might be better if they put cookies or something at the top though, now that I’m thinking about it,” Casey says. “They could put them on a little plat—”

“Excuse me!” a guy says from very close to Casey’s side. “Sorry, I just need to get over there.”

“Oh, sorry!” Casey says, turning towards David and taking a half a step forward to get out of the guy’s way. Now it’s a good thing they don’t have cookies, because moving to avoid the guy means Casey’s right in David’s personal space, and if there were a plate of cookies, he’d be fighting it for room. “Sorry, David.”

Before Casey can take a step back or David can say anything, someone’s elbow catches Casey in the middle of the back and sends him pitching forward. David steadies him, his hands coming up quickly to grab Casey’s shoulders. Casey takes a mostly-involuntary step forward, regaining his balance and ending up with David’s arms around him. It’s more than a little nice, and Casey looks up at David.

“Hi,” Casey says.

David has a little smile on his face, and he looks at Casey, to the side with a glare, and then back at Casey, smiling again. “Hey.”

“Hey, you two are so cute together!” someone says from Casey’s left, and Casey realizes that the person is talking about him and David, and also that maybe it’s not the best thing in the world to put David on the spot like that. Casey takes a step backwards, David’s hands sliding back to his shoulders.

“It’s crowded in here,” Casey says to David, because it gives David an out if the middle of a Pride Alliance meeting isn’t the right time. _Casey_ , at least, is certain that the middle of a Pride Alliance meeting doesn’t feel like the right time. 

“Yeah,” David says, almost absently, nodding with his words. “Yeah, it— it really is.” His hands linger on Casey’s shoulders for a moment longer, then drop. “They should pass the cookies around or something.”

Casey laughs, because what else is there to do, really? “Oh, David, that would make it a completely different type of meeting, I think.”

 

**Sunday, September 21st, 2014: North Avenue South dorm, Atlanta — Dave**

Dave frowns at his laptop and looks over at Casey, then at the time. Casey’s eight o’clock alarm will go off in a bit, and he should probably make himself keep working until then. Twenty minutes longer before a snack probably won’t kill Dave, and he’d interrupt both of their studying. 

That doesn’t seem to be a problem for Danny, though, who appears in front of the couch, staring at Dave. “Special K, I’m worried. You too, Casey.”

“Okay?” Dave looks over at Casey. “About what?”

“About Casey!” Danny says, like that should be obvious.

“Um.” Casey looks over at Dave and then at Danny. “You’re worried about me?”

“Well, yeah. There’s been all kinds of muggings lately. Not muggy, that’s the weather. People wandering up and down the road, looking for students to rob.” Danny stares at Dave intently. “We wouldn’t want Casey to get mugged.”

“Really?” Dave asks, because maybe Danny did get muggy and mugging confused, and since it’s September, it’s still pretty damn hot and, well, muggy. “I don’t think I read about those. Case?”

“On campus?” Casey says. “I didn’t hear anything about that. You’re sure it was _this_ year, Danny? Because sometimes I read an article and then I get upset about it, but then I realize, oops, no, it’s from 2011 or something like that.”

“Nope, I’m _sure_ ,” Danny says, stressing his words. “You should stay here tonight, Casey. Not wander out after dark and all of that.” He grins brightly at Dave after he finishes talking, and walks back down the hall as suddenly as he came. 

“Well, that was weird,” Casey says. He shrugs and turns back to his laptop and the book balanced precariously on one leg. “I think Danny’s been eating too many gummy bears.”

Dave shrugs. “Probably.” The two of them continue studying, until Casey’s alarm goes off and Ty appears, as if summoned, with a handful of beef jerky. 

“Hey!” Ty sits in one of the chairs and scatters the beef jerky on the table. “There’s some of the teriyaki one, Casey.”

“Oh, thanks!” Casey says, picking up piece of teriyaki jerky and taking a small bite. 

“So I was just checking the news and apparently violent crime is up in Atlanta this year.” Ty shakes his head. “What do you think it is? Too hot this summer?”

“Really.” Dave picks up a piece of the beef jerky and stares at Ty for a moment. “Violent crime is up, and you just happened to check the news.”

“Yeah.” Ty nods. “All kinds of violent crime.”

“Were you checking the news about violent crime specifically?” Casey asks. “Sometimes I like to look up weird crimes, like bicycle thefts or those robberies where the robber leaves something behind in exchange. Well, the bicycle theft isn’t weird, it’s just highly specific.”

“No, it was just right there.” Ty shakes his head. “Random victims. It’s a big problem.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, you know Special K, this isn’t like Lima, Ohio. Big town, bigger problems,” Ty says, a little too innocently. “I just think we’d want to be sure everyone’s safe.”

“That’s terrible,” Casey says. “Is it a crime ring, or do you think maybe it’s a spree?” He continues eating his jerky, not sounding too upset by the news.

“You should probably stay here until they figure that out,” Ty says, standing back up. “Guess you two want to study more, now. Keep the rest of that jerky.” 

“Case,” Dave says when he hears Ty’s door close, “are you beginning to suspect a conspiracy?”

“I think Danny just wants me to play the expansion pack of Animal Walk,” Casey says. “I don’t know what Ty wants.”

Dave shrugs. “I’m not totally sure either.” Dave unwraps another piece of beef jerky and goes back to studying, and at least twenty minutes pass before he hears Coop approaching. “Here we go,” he whispers under his breath to Casey.

“Man oh man, you are not gonna believe this story I just heard from Todd!” Coop says, sitting down across from Dave. “Hey, is that Ty’s beef jerky?”

“Yeah, have a piece,” Dave says. “And probably not.”

“Apparently there was a kid who just completely disappeared off Tech campus!” Coop says. “He was supposed to show up at the airport and never did, and they never found him. How’s that for creepy?”

“Yeah, right,” Dave scoffs. “Let me guess, if I say his name three times in front of the mirror, tomato juice will come out of the faucets?”

“Huh?” Coop asks. “Naw, it’s not one of those urban legends, Special K. It’s for real. He was a student here and he just vanished. Nobody knows what happened to him. I’m not too worried about myself, on account of I’d probably be hard to kidnap. Same for you and Ty, though we might want to put one of those microchips in Danny, like they implant down at that cat shelter he likes so much.” Coop scratches the back of his head and looks shifty. “Casey, now… no offense, but you’re not real big. You’d probably be pretty easy to carry off, if someone were looking to abduct somebody off Tech campus.”

“I bite,” Casey says dismissively.

“What’s your point, exactly?” Dave asks. “What’s the goal y’all are aiming for?”

“Hell, Special K! You make is sound like a conspiracy! Maybe you should go to that meeting that freaked Casey out so bad and tell ’em your theory about us.”

“Uh-huh.” Dave looks at Casey. “Case, what do you think they want?”

“They’re obviously concerned that I’m going to be mugged, violently crimed, and then abducted,” Casey says. “I never should have come to Atlanta. It’s a horrible place. I’m leaving in the morning,” he adds, nibbling another piece of beef jerky. “My life is in danger.”

“You should take it more seriously, the both of you,” Coop insists. “And Special K, you probably shouldn’t let Casey walk around by himself after dark. You know none of us minds if he stays over here.”

“Let,” Dave says flatly. “Right.”

“You know what I mean,” Coop grumbles. “But fine, be that way. I’ll help you make some fliers when he gets kidnapped.”

“Hear that, Casey? I’m supposed to decide where you’re going, now.” Dave rolls his eyes. “I think Coop’s hoping you’ll wash the dishes, personally.”

“My motives are good!” Coop says. “But like I said, fine. Do whatever you want to do,” he continues, then says under his breath, “even if it is taking you forever.”

“Have fun pretending to study, Coop,” Dave says, rolling his eyes again. Coop snorts and waves his hand at Dave as he stands up and stomps off to his room.

“That was dramatic,” Casey says. “I think they want me to stay here tonight.”

“I think you’re right. The question is really what do we do to them now,” Dave muses. “I stopped going to summer camp pretty young, so I never really got a chance to do those pranks you see in the movies. You think Coop really would wet the bed if we put his hand in a bowl of water or whatever?”

“I’m not sure Coop wouldn’t wet the bed anyway,” Casey says. “There has to be _some_ reason why none of the girls like him. Oh, I know! I _should_ stay here tonight, and in the morning I’ll cook breakfast. A really big breakfast and if they don’t eat all of it I’ll be so sad, especially since you and I both know what a great cook I am.”

“They’re going to think they’ve been rewarded, you know,” Dave says. 

“You leave the shells on for the fiber, remember?” Casey grins. “And spaghetti’s a breakfast food in Italy, right?”

“Extra garlic. I’m pretty sure that’s a requirement. The fact that Danny was bitching about garlic and heartburn has nothing to do with my saying that.”

“At least Danny’s girlfriend lives all the way in Florida. You should warn Mercedes that she probably doesn’t want to see Ty tomorrow,” Casey says. “Or for a few days after that. I could probably use a _lot_ of garlic.”

“I don’t think they had any plans early in the week,” Dave says, “but we’ll let her know anyway. Warning: avoid 315 and its residents.”

“Maybe you should come stay in my dorm with me. We can kick Murph out. He can find a bridge to sleep under, like a troll,” Casey says. “He likes those video games where you can play the trolls, so it would be good practice.”

“There’s that tunnel under the interstate,” Dave says. “He can live there, and if anyone really does get kidnapped, it’d probably be Murph.”

“Is it really true that if your roommate dies, you get straight As for the semester?” Casey asks. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to Murph, but you know, if something _did_ …”

“Probably some schools. At Tech? I bet the professors automatically lower everything by one letter grade.”

“I think it’s not too late, David. Hawaii has colleges, too. We could probably make it in time for spring semester if we left now!”

 

**Saturday, September 27th, 2014: Rocky Mountain Pizza, Atlanta — Miles**

“I’m just saying,” Miles says to everybody at the table, though admittedly a little bit more to Casey. “Tech put up a valiant effort and all, but you just can’t expect a school full of engineers to beat a school full of gen ed majors. You boys actually have to show up for your classes.”

“Yeah, but all of your teammates’ll work for us,” Ty says from across the table. “Engineers versus sanitation engineers.”

“Mmhmm, but they won’t even be qualified to work for me,” Miles counters. “But don’t worry, when your buildings fall down, I’ll be happy to represent you in the lawsuits for a nominal fee.” He winks at Casey, who giggles and eats a bite a pizza to look like he’s not giggling.

“Danny isn’t going to build buildings,” Casey says. “And I’m not sure what Coop’s going to do.”

“Be awesome,” Coop says. “You better watch yourself, Brown.”

“At least all of us can keep track of numbers, instead of calling it a ‘nominal fee’,” Ty says slowly. “It’s sad you can’t add, Brown.”

“Ouch. Shep, your roomies are testy tonight,” Miles says. “But if you want to hire all my teammates to take care of your grunt work, that’s fine by me. I’d hire somebody else to keep an eye on them, though.”

Karofsky shrugs. “I don’t control ’em. And anyway, that’s economy-building. Right, Ty?”

“Yeah, exactly!” Ty grins at Karofsky. “The more people hired, the bigger the economy.”

“See? I knew there was a reason I didn’t major in economics,” Miles says. He turns back to Casey. “Now, Cherry. You never did tell me what happened with that creepy roommate of yours and the socks. Did you figure out if he stole them?”

Casey shakes his head. “No, but two more pairs disappeared, and I know I didn’t leave them in David’s dorm, because they didn’t turn up in anybody’s laundry. It’s _so_ weird. What is he _doing_ with all those socks?”

“You probably don’t want to think about that too hard,” Miles says. “Nothing I can come up with sounds that reassuring.”

“ _Miles_!” Casey squeaks. “Ewww!”

“I didn’t say a thing,” Miles says. “Not my fault you’ve got a dirty mind, Cherry.”

“So, Miles Brown,” Ty says abruptly, “now that we’ve played Clemson, you can tell us a funny story about your teammates, right?”

“Well, you know how it is down here, everybody’s a ‘the third’ or a ‘the fourth’, right?” Miles says. “All those old families, especially up in South Carolina. So there’s this ‘the fourth’ on the team, and out of the blue he starts getting all these letters from the IRS about thousands and thousands of dollars that he owed them.”

Ty, Danny, and Karofsky all look like they’re trying not to laugh, though a snort escapes from Danny.

“So he’s just losing his mind about all this money he owes, doesn’t know how it happened since he’s never worked a day in his life and his mama and daddy still claim him on their income taxes,” Miles continues. “He actually started making plans to flee the country before somebody finally figures out that all the documents say ‘the second’ on them, and that they were supposed to go to his grandpa in North Carolina!”

“How long did it take to figure that out?” Ty asks, grinning.

“Three weeks. Took him a week and a half to tell anybody he owed something like fifteen thou for an investment he doesn’t remember ever making, and another week for him to come up with the plan to leave the country.” Miles shakes his head. “That dumbass was going to go to Puerto Rico. Guess he’d have had about eighteen months, anyway.”

“Who figured it out?” Casey asks. “Was he relieved?”

“To be honest with you, I think I’m the only one who actually read those papers,” Miles says, “but I told Echols, and Echols was happy to take the credit. And yeah, that poor dude cried like a baby, talking about how he wasn’t gonna have to learn how to speak Spanish now and we saved his life.” He shakes his head. “Running off to Puerto Rico and having no idea about anything to do with Puerto Rico.”

“I like that movie,” Danny says. “The one about Puerto Rico and New York.”

Miles is sure Danny can’t be talking about the movie he thinks Danny’s talking about, so he looks at Casey and asks, “He’s not talking about…” 

Casey nods slowly. “Yes. He is.”

“Hey, wait!” Danny points at Miles. “If you’re from Lima, too, you know my girlfriend!”

“That’s right, you’re dating Brittany, aren’t you?” Miles asks. “She’s a really nice girl.”

“Yeah.” Danny grins happily. “She is.”

“Don’t know her as well as I know the group of Cheerios from the class after her, but everybody liked Brittany,” Miles says.

“Did you just now work that out?” Ty says to Danny, shaking his head. 

“I didn’t think about it!”

“It’s alright,” Miles assures Danny. “Everything in its own time.” His sister’s dating Rick, after all, so Miles knows not everybody processes information at the same rate of speed, and Danny at least doesn’t gives him the stinkeye like Coop does.

“Like Tech beating Clemson,” Ty suddenly says. “We’ll see you again in December at the championship game, how’s that sound?”

“Sounds good to me,” Miles says, nodding. “Losers buy the pizza.”

“We’ll come out good either way, then,” Danny says. “More of us to split the bill. I mean, I’d still rather see Miles Brown here feed all of us, but we’ll be fine.”

“Best of luck to you, then, Danny,” Miles says. “So, Cherry. I’m heading out once we’re done here. You got any clubs you like?”

“Um.” Casey looks at Karofsky, who shrugs very slightly, a strange expression on his face. “I haven’t been to any clubs.”

Miles frowns and shakes his head. “You mean to tell me Shep’s had you here for two months and hasn’t even taken you out to a single club? That’s a goddamn tragedy.”

“No. We haven’t gone to any clubs, but you know I don’t really know how to dance, Miles,” Casey says. 

“Oh, Cherry,” Miles says. “I know you can do this kind of dancing just fine.”

Karofsky and Ty glower at Miles like he’s committed a grievous sin, though it’s not Miles’ fault if Karofsky is still falling down on the whole hooking-up-with-Casey thing. He’s had _months_ to make his move, two of those months with nobody else around to even bother them, so if he still can’t manage it, that’s not Miles’ problem. Miles is all about trying to do the right and noble thing, but there’s noble and then there’s just ridiculous.

Nobody seems to have anything to say about it, though, so Miles says, “You should come out with me, Cherry. We’ll have fun. You’ll like it!”

“Oh. Hmm.” Casey looks at Karofsky again. “That could be fun. I don’t know where any clubs are, or what to wear to them or anything like that, but probably that could be fun.”

“There. It’s settled, then,” Miles declares. “Anybody else care to join us? Danny, you a dancing man?”

“Well,” Danny says slowly, “Britt would probably think it was good for me to go. She loves to dance and I could use some practice to keep up with her. Plus I guess I could pretend there were more girls there.”

“Exactly. It’d be great practice for keeping up with your girlfriend,” Miles says. “Anybody else? Shep, you got you a clubbing outfit?”

“Not the same kind as what you wore last year,” Karofsky says, but he’s almost smiling. “But sure.”

“That’s just not a look everybody can pull off,” Miles says. 

“Most people don’t need glitter,” Karofsky deadpans.

“Shep, I would _pay_ to see you in glitter.” Miles shakes his head. “Not a whole lot, mind you, but I’d pay.”

 

 **Saturday, September 27th, 2014: Rainforest nightclub, Atlanta — Dave**

Just when Dave finally thinks he’s found a place in Atlanta that doesn’t somehow go back to birds, the four of them walk into Rainforest and there’s a huge cage with two really exotic looking birds and one parrot. 

“Great. Birds,” Dave says under his breath. Brown is the only one that really has any sort of attire appropriate for clubbing; Dave just put on a clean pair of jeans and a clean T-shirt, which appears to be what Danny did as well. Brown had pulled on some shirt that looks like the seams are going to split, and then insisted that Casey borrow a white tank top. It’s a little too long and Casey had told Dave that it was like wearing a costume, which Dave can sort of understand. Miles is the only one that looks totally comfortable as they head towards the dance floor, and Dave is pretty sure he won’t be able to hear for an hour or two after they leave. 

“I didn’t know gay clubs have birds!” Danny says. “Do all of ’em have birds?”

“Only in Atlanta,” Dave answer. “I’m pretty sure they must in Atlanta.”

Brown is apparently telling Casey some kind of funny story, though how Casey can hear it, Dave isn’t sure. Casey’s laughing about it, though, as Brown leans a little closer than is probably appropriate for friends. Casey keeps glancing back at Dave with a look on his face like he can’t believe that all of them are in a real live dance club. 

Before they actually make it to the dance floor, Casey spins fully around and exclaims, “David! This is so exciting! We should try _all_ the clubs in Atlanta!”

Dave can feel his jaw drop open slightly and he shakes his head. “No, I think we probably don’t want to try _all_ of them, Case.”

“No? Oh, okay,” Casey says, not seeming at all disappointed. “Some of them, maybe, then.” He spins back in the direction of the dance floor, then Miles grabs him by the wrist and drags him into the crowd, Casey giving Dave a big grin over his shoulder. 

Dave shakes his head before turning to say something to Danny, but Danny’s disappeared, and after a moment, Dave spots him in the middle of the dance floor, giving it his all, and Dave shakes his head again, this time grinning. He steps to the edge of the crowd himself, observing more than actually dancing, but moving enough to be participating. The majority of the people there seem to be a little older than college age, but not so much older that the four of them stand out. 

Dave sees Danny rebuff a few guys that want to dance with him before he shifts his gaze to Brown and Casey. Casey’s hair is flying everywhere as he bounces and spins around; Brown’s style of dancing fits more with the rest of the club, a little too close and quite a bit more sexual. Dave sighs just a little and continues dancing, still scanning the rest of the club and observing. 

Dave thinks they’ve been there for twenty or thirty minutes when Dave gets a clearer view of Casey again. He’s sweated so much that the white tanktop is almost see-through in places, and one side is sliding down Casey’s shoulder. Brown slides it back up with one finger, and Dave shakes his head a little. A few minutes later, though, when it slides again, Brown leaves his hand on Casey’s shoulder, brushing against Casey’s skin, and Dave glares before slowly pushing through the crowd and coming up behind Casey. 

“Tired yet?” he says right next to Casey’s ear. 

“Hi!” Casey says, turning his head slightly. He leans back against Dave, and Dave takes half a step forward, still swaying somewhat with the beat. Dave looks over Casey’s shoulder at Brown, and the look he receives is not exactly friendly. Maybe Casey got his wolf pack theory from Brown, given the intensity of Brown’s look, like it’s going to genuinely establish something.

“Hey Cherry,” Miles says, without looking away from Dave. “You wanna go get a drink or something?”

“Hmm?” Casey responds, sounding spacey. He shakes his head. “Nope.”

Dave glances down, unconcerned about wolf pack dominance, and realizes Casey’s eyes are closed, his head tipped back on Dave’s chest. Dave puts his hands loosely on Casey’s hips and moves the two of them just a few more feet away from Brown. When the music changes, Dave shifts so he can’t see Brown any longer, and he and Casey continue dancing, though with less spinning than Casey was doing previously. Casey’s tank top slides again, though Dave doesn’t try to make it stay in place. The freckles on Casey’s shoulders almost glow from the combination of sweat and flashing lights. 

Dave loses track of time; it could be fifteen minutes or it could be an hour before Danny suddenly materializes at their side. “Special K! Casey! I’ve turned down so many guys!”

Dave laughs, and he can feel Casey’s laugh reverberate. “Britt’s gonna be proud, Danny.”

“Yeah, she probably will be,” Danny agrees. “But can we go now? And drive-through a restaurant or something? I’m hungry!”

“Sure. Case?”

Casey nods, but does not actually move away from Dave. Dave laughs a little and slowly steers Casey out, Danny trailing along, until they pass the birds again and finally find themselves on the sidewalk outside Rainforest. Dave lets his hands drop from Casey’s hips and takes one of Casey’s hands in his as they walk around the back to Dave’s truck. Danny starts talking as soon as he can hear himself, it seems like, because he has a constant stream of commentary as they climb in the truck and Dave starts the engine.

They’re at least five minutes away from the club when Casey suddenly says, “Oh, did somebody tell Miles we were going?”

“I told him before we got there that he might need to take a taxi,” Dave explains. 

“He’ll probably make a new friend,” Casey says, not sounding concerned about it. “That was so much fun. We should go dancing again some time, okay David?”

“Yeah.” Dave nods. “We can do that.” Casey is probably right; Brown will make a new friend or possibly two before he wakes Dave up to get let into the building. If Dave had been thinking, he would have just let Brown take a key. They don’t pass any open restaurants for most of the drive, so Dave swings onto the other side of campus and the twenty-four hour McDonald’s drive-through for Danny. 

“Awesome, Special K!” Danny says, leaning forward to place his order. Dave orders himself a pop, then looks questioningly at Casey. Casey’s still a little spaced out, though, so Dave reaches over and touches Casey’s shoulder.

“Case? You want a pop?”

“Hmm. Sure. That’s good,” Casey says. 

Dave hands Danny back his bag of food and his pop, then hands Casey’s to him. The rest of the drive doesn’t take long, and as they head into the dorm, Danny keeps talking. Dave sits on the couch, Casey beside him, as Danny continues. 

“I should have gotten a picture!” Danny is saying. “Can you take some pictures now, for Britt? It’s not the same as pictures from the club though.” He pulls out his phone and hands it to Dave without waiting for a response, then starts posing in what Dave privately thinks are somewhat ridiculous ways.

As Dave takes pictures, Casey shifts onto his back, his head on Dave’s leg, watching Dave as he snaps pictures for Danny. Fifty or so pictures later, Danny is finally satisfied, and Dave looks down to realize that Casey is sound asleep. Dave puts one hand on Casey’s still-exposed shoulder and closes his own eyes. They can get up and shower and move into Dave’s room after they’ve rested for awhile.


	19. October 2014

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Midterms through Halloween; still waiting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warnings: suggestion of a dubiously consensual hookup between secondary characters, or at least, of very poor decision making while intoxicated; a character being mildly triggered by upsetting behavior.**
> 
> Remember, if you see a link, click!

**Thursday, October 9th, 2014: North Avenue South dorm, Atlanta — Dave**

The two weeks out of a semester that the dorm is actually quiet are the week of midterms and the week just before finals start; the quiet of the dorms means that Dave’s definitely heard every single of one of Casey’s alarms during the week, though, echoing through the dorm. 

Practice on Thursday runs late, always, and there’s no exception made during midterms, and then Dave and the rest of the team has to grab a quick dinner before the dining hall starts to take food away, getting ready to close for the night. Still, Dave’s pulled up some reading by the time Casey’s phone reminds Casey—and the rest of them—that it’s eight o’clock. Casey turns off the alarm without really looking at his phone and keeps staring at his CS assignment.

Dave looks up sporadically over the next ten minutes, but Casey continues to work, cursing under his breath occasionally, which makes Dave fight hard not to grin. It’s not the first time this week he’s noticed Casey ignoring the alarms on his phone, and after a full fifteen minutes have passed, Dave clears his throat. 

“Hey, Case?”

“Saturday morning,” Casey answers, still without looking up. 

Dave frowns and shakes his head. “Uh, okay? But Casey – you’ve still got a few hours. Take a minute.”

“I’ve got clothes in two places. It has to wait for Saturday,” Casey says. 

“I have no idea what you mean,” Dave mutters, stretching forward and gently closing Casey’s laptop. “Casey.”

Casey blinks rapidly, then rubs his eyes before looking up at Dave. “Oh. Hi, David!”

“Hey.” Dave chuckles for a second. “You’ve been ignoring a few things.”

“Oh. Well, I mean, I can probably keep wearing these jeans for a few more days. It’s just the socks, really.”

“I’m not talking about… laundry,” Dave finishes, realizing finally that Casey’s been thinking about laundry the entire time. “As long as your jeans aren’t walking on their own, they’re fine.”

“I don’t think they are,” Casey says, frowning down at them. He stretches his legs, then brings one knee up near his face, where he sniffs it. “They don’t smell too weird yet. I think I’m probably fine.”

“Yeah, probably,” Dave says. “But you’ve been ignoring the alarms.”

“It’s just been a couple of them,” Casey insists. “I was right in the middle of a line of code, and I wanted to finish it first.”

“Case, when was the last time you actually ate?” Dave asks. 

“Um.” Casey rubs his eyes again and picks up his phone, squinting at it. “Lunch? Maybe? Or breakfast, I’m pretty sure I had breakfast. I probably ate since then, but I just don’t remember it.”

“Yeah, that’s probably more than just one or two,” Dave says. “Let’s order some pizza.”

“Can we get it with double pepperoni?”

Before Dave can say anything, Ty calls down the hall. “Did you say pizza? I want an Avalanche!”

“One double pepperoni, one Avalanche,” Dave says with a snort. 

“Is somebody ordering an Avalanche?” Coop shouts from his room. “Get some Ski Poles, too. They’re easy to eat with one hand.”

Casey starts to laugh and puts his hand over his mouth quickly, giving Dave a conspiratorial look. Dave snorts again and shakes his head. “Anything else?” he calls. “Danny?”

“I’ll eat something!” Danny calls back. “Good idea, Special K!”

Dave laughs and pulls out his phone. Before he dials, though, he looks at Casey. “But don’t ignore them tomorrow?”

Casey gives Dave a stubborn look, like he’s about to protest, but then he sighs and nods his head. “I’ll try.”

“It’s pretty simple,” Dave says wryly. “I know you have plenty of those Clif bars.”

“I _said_ I’ll try.”

“And I’m saying it’s not really the kind of thing that requires much trying.” Dave shrugs. “I didn’t say you had to get an A on all your mid-terms or anything.”

Casey’s eyes widen and he looks slightly frantic. “No, I _do_ have to get an A on all my midterms! That’s why I have to keep working on my stuff and studying, even if there’s alarms. I can eat later, but I can’t make an A later.”

“Uh, no, you don’t.” Dave shakes his head and hits the number for Rocky Mountain Pizza. “You have more than one grade in the semester. Five minutes to eat isn’t going to make or break a grade.”

“I have to do a good job, David,” Casey says earnestly. 

“Everybody wants to do well, Case. But like I said – stopping to eat isn’t going to change how well you do.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Casey argues. “I didn’t realize I’d missed that many.”

Dave nods. “Just don’t turn any of them off?” He finally gets connected and rattles off their order, then hangs up and sets his phone down. “And no programming while you eat pizza.”

“Okay, David,” Casey says. 

Danny walks out of the hall, comic book in hand. “You order the pizza, Special K?” he asks, walking through to the refrigerator and grabbing a bottle of Gatorade. 

“Yeah, I did,” Dave answers, looking at Danny curiously. “Are you going to study?”

“Aw, nah, I did,” Danny says, waving his comic book with a grin. “Just two tomorrow, they should be fun.”

“Fun?” Casey repeats, sounding mystified. 

“Yeah, you know. Not any of those weed-out classes,” Danny says cheerfully. “Call me when the pizza’s here!” he adds, walking back down the hall, now with a bottle of Gatorade.

Dave looks at Casey and shrugs. “I still wouldn’t call them fun, but I guess that’s Danny.”

 

**Friday, October 10th, 2014: Georgia Tech campus, Atlanta — Casey**

Casey didn’t expect David to be waiting for him outside of class, but there he is, which means his day has already improved exponentially. David smiles and inclines his head towards the Student Center, and Casey nods as they start to walk in that direction.

As they approach the Student Center, they pass one of the guys from David’s football team. 

“Hey, Special K. Oh, hey, Casey!” he adds, raising a hand in greeting as they walk by each other.

“Hi, Todd,” Casey replies. David gives him an odd look, then shrugs slightly. “Do you think they’ll have Jello today?” he asks David. 

“I think they have Jello every day,” David says, grinning. “I’m beginning to think it’s written in their service contracts or something.”

“I always worry, though,” Casey says. “One of these days, they won’t have it, and if I expected that they would, I’ll be disappointed.”

“But then you would get to fill out a comment card with something other than ‘excellent’,” David points out. “That’d be a new experience, at least.”

“David, that implies I fill out comment cards at all, which I don’t really,” Casey says, as they walk into the student center. “Not often, anyway. Not often enough that it’s a thing that I do. Nobody would think of me as someone who fills out comment cards.”

“I definitely would,” David says, looking over at Casey with a grin. 

“Well, you’re certainly not nobody, but I think your sample size is skewed compared to other people’s,” Casey says, doing his best to sound haughty. “Oh, but they do have red Jello!”

David laughs. “Told you.”

“It’s true. You did. I concede the Jello victory to you.”

David holds his fists above his head briefly before grabbing a tray and picking a line to get his food. Like always, David makes a big show of averting his eyes from the Chick-fil-A, and like always, Casey pretends not to laugh at him. They put food on their trays and go to find a seat, and once they’re seated, Casey lifts the top of his sandwich and looks at it critically.

“This was supposed to be Cuban,” Casey says. “I think it’s only Cuban in the sense that it’s possible the person slicing the meat was smoking a cigar.”

David laughs. “Not going to find it in Little Havana?”

“I think I’ll just start with my Jello.”

“How do you say ‘Jello’ in Spanish?”

 

**Saturday, October 11th, 2014: North Avenue South dorm, Atlanta — Dave**

Dave isn’t really sure how Miles Brown convinced all of them to go out for dinner and drinks ahead of Brown going to clubs later, but he does and that’s why Dave is drinking a beer and watching Brown, Danny, and Coop doing shots in some form of a drinking game. 

“C’mon, guys,” Ty says through laughter. “We should go back to campus.”

“Nah, nah,” Brown says with a dismissive wave. “I think we get two more shots into Danny, he’s gonna show us that dance Brittany taught him.”

“Oh, no,” Dave says, shaking his head, because who knows if that was an actual dance or some kind of sexual thing, with Brittany. “We’re definitely going back to campus now,” he says, nodding at Ty. “Let’s go, you three. Case?”

“I agree that Danny shouldn’t dance,” Casey says. “Also, they won’t serve me here. I don’t want to be served, but it’s the principle of the thing.”

Dave laughs. “Definitely.” He and Ty stand up, prodding Danny up and then Coop. “Come on, Brown.”

“Spoilsport, ’s what you are,” Brown pronounces. “Always such a spoilsport, Shep. Always gotta be the _adult_.” He staggers over in Casey’s direction and addresses him. “Not everybody knows how to have fun like us, Cherry.”

“I’m drinking a Coke,” Casey points out.

“You’re fun with a Coke, too,” Brown says, a little too suggestively for Dave’s comfort. “You’re coming out with me later, right? How about you, Danny? You coming out dancing with me again?”

“Not this time,” Danny says cheerfully. “I’m going to Skype with Brittany tonight.”

“Get her to teach you some new dance moves for next time, then,” Brown says. “Shep?   
You seemed to enjoy yourself last time. You and Cherry hitting the clubs with me tonight?”

“I’m saving myself for the Parade tomorrow,” Dave says dryly. 

“That is _so_ gay,” Casey says, starting to laugh. Brown gives Casey a strange sideways glance before shaking his head.

“Ty? Coop? It’ll be an experience!” Brown says. Ty shakes his head.

“Naw,” Coop says. “But I’ll let you carry me back to the dorm, since it’s your fault the floor’s all crookedy.”

“You know, I think I’ll pass on that one,” Brown answers. “But thanks for the offer.”

The walk back to the dorm is interesting; half of them staggering and the other half of them annoyed at having to walk so slowly. When they finally reach the dorm, Danny waves over his shoulder and stumbles into his room, presumably to start his Skype date. Ty collapses in a chair with a large bottle of Gatorade, shaking his head as he looks at Danny, Coop, and Brown. Dave sits down at the end of the couch with Casey next to him and watches Coop and Brown stagger around. Brown finally plunks himself down on the other end of the couch, grinning drunkenly at Casey.

Casey frowns at Brown and moves a little closer to Dave. “Miles, maybe you should go to sleep,” he suggests. “I think sleeping would be a good idea, don’t you?”

“No, I’m going out to a club later,” Brown says. “Just gonna rest here a little, so don’t mind me. You tell me all about what you’ve been up to.”

“Um. Not so much of anything,” Casey says. He shifts on the sofa, and when Dave looks over at him, he looks visibly upset and uncomfortable. Dave winces and tries to think of a way out for Casey. 

“Hey, Case? Weren’t you going to check on that thing tonight? You can use my desk if you want to.”

“I might go back to my dorm tonight,” Casey says. “Since, um. So many people here and all. I can leave my key for Miles to get in, even, so he doesn’t have to wake people up.”

“Aw, don’t go, Cherry,” Brown says. “Come out with me tonight. It’ll be fun, like old times.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Casey says, though it’s not clear whether he’s rejecting the idea of going out or the idea of it being fun, or possibly both. 

Dave rolls his eyes at Brown. “There’s plenty of people waiting for you out there at the clubs, Brown.” If Brown doesn’t get that Casey’s uncomfortable, the least he can do is go ahead and leave. “Casey, wasn’t that thing time-sensitive? You don’t want to miss it walking across campus.”

Casey glances over at Dave and nods his head. “Okay, David. I, um. I’ll go do that. Goodnight, everybody, just in case that, um. Time-sensitive thing. If it keeps me.”

“Night, Casey,” Ty says, then looks disapprovingly at Brown. 

“You’re going? That’s too bad,” Brown says, with an exaggerated look of disappointment. “Guess I’ll see you bright and early at least.” 

Casey doesn’t answer beyond nodding his head and offering Brown a weak smile, then he goes back into Dave’s room and closes the door behind himself. Brown watches him go, and turns back to Dave with an eyebrow raised.

“So, that how it is now?” Brown asks.

Dave raises his own eyebrow and snorts. “And that’s any of your business why?”

“Oh, I’ve got a vested interest in him,” Brown slurs. “Us being _close_ friends and all.”

Ty stands up abruptly, empty Gatorade bottle in hand, and goes down the hall towards his bedroom. Coop looks confused and mildly alarmed, and also stands up, weaving on his feet. “I’m just gonna…” and wanders in the direction of the kitchen.

“Well, then I’d normally suggest you talk to him yourself,” Dave says, “but since he practically ran away from you just now, maybe that should wait.”

“Pfft.” Brown waves his hand dismissively. “ _I’m_ not the problem. I’ve never _been_ the problem, no matter how much you always wanted to make me be the problem.”

Dave rolls his eyes. “You’ve been drunk around him before?”

Brown rolls his eyes right back. “It’s _you_ ,” he says, pointing at Dave. “Out at that bar, and I’m watching the two of you with your close-sitting, and your sneaky hand-holding. And that is _all_ you, all that Mary Poppins nicey-nice shit.”

“And the problem is related to umbrellas?” Dave says, then shakes his head. “No, nevermind, no umbrellas. I’m lost, Brown,” Dave admits. 

“The minute he gets around you, it’s like he turns right back into that kid crying over you leaving, like the last two years didn’t even happen,” Brown continues. “But that’s not who he is, Shep. He’s not that kid that got all pink-faced anytime somebody said the word ‘sex’, Shep. The Cherry I know, he didn’t have any problem going after what he wants, so if there’s some sort of hold up here, I think we both know what’s causing it.” Brown’s head bobs a little with his words as he really gets into what he’s saying, speaking almost rhythmically. 

Dave clenches one hand into a fist, the hand that Brown can’t see, and shakes his head. “So _you_ know Casey better than he does?” he asks. “’Cause that’s what it sounds like you’re saying, to me.”

“Oh, I think Cherry knows himself just fine, when he’s not around you,” Brown counters. “He was figuring it all out just fine, but the minute he gets around you, it’s like he’s so damn worried about being who _you_ want him to be. He’s so hung up on this superhero picture he had of you when he was sixteen.”

“You know, say whatever you want about me,” Dave say angrily. “I know you don’t like me, and you’re never gonna like me, and trust me, Brown, the feeling is fucking mutual. But no. You say you care about Casey, and then you turn around and act like just one person can make him regress? That’s a piss-poor opinion you have of him, Brown. So shut the fuck up.”

“He’s settling for less than he oughta be getting,” Brown says, but some of the wind’s out of his sails now. “And you are _never_ gonna be able to give him enough. Nobody can give him enough.”

Dave glares at Brown, still angry, but he also thinks that maybe Brown could use a therapist like Lisa, based on that last sentence, because clearly Brown thinks he can’t give Casey enough, either. “I guess that’s just something Casey has to decide,” he finally says coolly. “But if you value your pretty face, you won’t say any of this shit to Casey’s face.”

“Nothing you can do can take away what he got from me,” Brown says, matter-of-factly, looking slightly disdainful.

Dave’s fingernails bite into his palm, but he manages to resist the urge to grit his teeth. He doesn’t respond immediately, not wanting to give Brown more ammunition for whatever scenario he thinks they’re in. “Maybe that’s the difference between us, Brown,” Dave finally says, shaking his head and trying not to roll his eyes. “I’m not trying to live in the past.” Dave stands up and takes a few steps down the hall. “Enjoy your night, Brown. Have fun on the couch.”

When he gets to the bedroom, Casey is sitting in the middle of the bed, his knees drawn up to his chest and his back against the wall, and he’s trembling a little. Dave drops onto the bed beside him. 

“Hey, Case. You okay?”

“Hi, David,” Casey says. His voice is soft and quavery. “I don’t know why I got so upset. It’s just Miles.”

Dave shrugs, not sure Casey really wants it spelled out, or at least not Dave’s theory. “It’s okay. I think Brown’s going out now.”

“I hope he’s careful.” Casey leans against Dave. “He should be careful, walking around like that. I don’t think it’s safe.”

“I think Brown’ll take care of himself, don’t worry,” Dave reassures Casey. “Let’s watch a movie on my laptop and rest up for the parade tomorrow.” He grins. “Trust me, Case, you’re going to be surprised!”

Dave sets up an episode of _American Gods_ on his laptop and Casey keeps leaning against him as they watch. Dave absently runs his hand over Casey’s arm, slow and steady, until after a bit, Dave realizes Casey is asleep. Dave smiles a little and closes his laptop, moving it off the bed, and then maneuvers the two of them underneath the covers, alarm set and Dave’s arm draped over Casey’s chest. Hopefully they’ll manage some sleep, even though he knows that Casey won’t sleep easy. 

 

**Saturday, October 13th, 2014: North Avenue South dorm — Miles**

Karofsky’s words sting more than Miles would like to admit. They sting enough that he feels them through the alcohol, and instead of feeling pleasantly intoxicated, Miles feels guilty and drunk and more than a little ashamed of himself, and he doesn’t like feeling any of that. Doesn’t mean he wasn’t right about all that stuff he said to Karofsky, but he wasn’t trying to say anything bad about Casey, no matter how Karofsky tries to spin it.

It wasn’t about Casey, it was just about Karofsky, and everything he’s done to mess things up, like making Casey so goddamn in love with him at sixteen that he couldn’t ever get over it. It’s not like Miles didn’t try. He did everything he could to break that spell Karofsky had over Casey, but nothing was doing it. Not him, not half the boys in western Ohio, and if neither quality nor quantity could do it, there was nothing doing it.

Miles isn’t bitter about it or anything, he just doesn’t like seeing his friend act like that, innocent and shy like Miles knows he isn’t. He deserves better than somebody who’d want him like that, to put on that kind of act, is all.

Once Miles is sure that neither Karofsky nor Casey are coming back to the common area, he pushes himself up off the sofa and wanders into the kitchen, thinking he’ll maybe make some coffee to perk himself up before he goes out and hits the clubs. Coop’s still in the kitchen, though, eating cold lo mein out of a carton, and he gives Miles a drunk-looking nod in greeting when Miles walks in.

Noodles aside, Coop’s not a bad looking guy. Kind of a dick, kind of hopeless, but not bad looking when he’s not wearing that ballcap of his. He’s also one of Karofsky’s buddies, which after their little chit-chat on the sofa, means he should be off-limits. Which of course means, Miles now wants nothing more than to get Coop to put down the noodles and do something he’ll regret in the morning, and to see who notices.

“So,” Miles says, walking over to lean on the counter next to Coop.

“So,” Coop echoes, setting down his noodles.

“Clubs are a long walk, and I’m tired,” Miles says. He leans a little closer to Coop, who doesn’t flinch or move away. Interesting.

“Yeah? So?” Coop says. He looks at Miles suspiciously, but not so suspiciously that he’s bolting.

“So, it’s a long way to go for a little bit of fun,” Miles says, shrugging. “I hear you’re not seeing a lot of fun lately. Whatcha say we do something about that.”

“I see plenty of fun,” Coop protests.

“Oh, I’m sure, I’m sure,” Miles says. “But I’m not talking about video games and trips to the movies kinda fun.” He pokes Coop in the sternum with one finger and trails it slowly down Coop’s chest.

“Fuck you,” Coop says. His eyes watch Miles’ hand moving down his chest, stopping right above his jeans.

“Yeah, probably not that,” Miles says, snagging Coop by the waistband of his pants, and starting to haul him out of the kitchen in the direction of Coop’s bedroom. “But something. I guarantee you something.”

 

**Sunday, October 12th, 2014: Midtown, Atlanta — Casey**

“But _why_ , David?” Casey calls into the kitchen. “Why would you want to make that?”

“Gonna be a long day!” David calls back. “Parade’ll take a few hours.”

“So you’re trying to render me incapable of walking? David, that’s just mean! Atkins scramble is just mean!”

“You don’t have to walk, just stand!” David sounds cheerful as he cooks. “I’m gonna take a picture of your plate for you to send to Coach.”

“She’ll know it’s a lie, because she knows I don’t eat Atkins scramble,” Casey says. “She’ll call you a liar. She might suspect you stuffed me in a box somewhere and are just pretending I’m here!”

David laughs. “Yeah, yeah. Danny, Ty, Coop!” he raises his voice. “Atkins scramble.”

“Oh, sweet,” Ty says, popping out of his room. “I love Atkins scramble. You know what would be a perfect day? Atkins scramble for breakfast, and Karofsky chili for dinner.”

“What about leftover Karofsky chili _in_ the Atkins scramble?” Danny asks, yawning and scratching his head. “Extra-spicey scramble.”

“Why do you all hate me?” Casey asks, in an extra-pitiful voice. “If you think I’m here too much, you can just tell me. You don’t have to build a defensive wall out of protein-based food!”

“I bet Special K could build something really nice out of Clif bars and beef jerky,” Ty muses.

“Yeah, I’ll get _right_ on that,” Dave says, walking into the living area with his own plate of Atkins scramble. 

“Maybe I’ll just have some orange juice,” Casey says. “It’s safer that way.” He walks into the kitchen, where he puts approximately two square inches of Atkins scramble on his plate, though he does pour himself a glass of orange juice, too. He’s just settling himself back onto the sofa when Coop’s door opens and Miles comes swaggering out of Coop’s room, pulling the door shut behind him. It’s a particular type of swagger, one that Casey has seen many times, and Casey sets his fork down on his plate and stares at Miles.

“Hey, Cherry,” Miles says, with a wide grin. “There any coffee?”

“Just poured the last cup!” Danny says from the kitchen. “Starting a new one.”

“Well, that is mighty sweet of you, Danny,” Miles says, starting to swagger towards the kitchen. 

“Nah, that’s just the rule, whoever finishes it starts the next— hey, wait. Where did you sleep, Miles Brown?” Danny sounds very confused.

Casey’s eyes widen and he whispers, “Danny! Don’t ask him that!” Miles, however, just throws Danny a grin over his shoulder as he continues into the kitchen. Miles is still in the kitchen when Coop’s door opens again, and this time, Coop darts out through his door and sprints down the hall to the bathroom, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers.

There’s an echoing clink as David, Ty, and Danny set down their forks and coffee cups simultaneously. “Did I just— I’m really confused,” Danny says into the silence. “Really, really confused. I was just gonna tell y’all about the shirt Britt sent me to wear today, but this is more confusing.”

“Maybe you should go get that shirt,” Ty says, shrugging. “’Cause it looks like Brown here ain’t talking.”

Miles strolls out of the kitchen with a mug of coffee in hand. Danny nods at Ty and goes back to his own room, plate in hand, and Miles proceeds to make himself a little too comfortable in Danny’s abandoned chair.

“So, what time are y’all planning on walking over to the festivities?” Miles asks, sipping his coffee. Casey thinks he looks too smug for safety, possibly. 

“Miles!” Casey says, trying to make a ‘knock it off’ face, but Miles just keeps smiling at him like he didn’t just emerge from David’s supposedly straight roommate’s bedroom, walking with a sex swagger. 

“Not with you o’clock,” David says, not looking up from his plate.

“David!” Casey says, because nobody is interested in cooperating or behaving. 

Ty takes a sip of coffee and then nods. “I agree with Special K.”

“Ty!” Casey says.

“It’s fine, Cherry,” Miles says. “I’ve got other plans, anyway. You mind if I use your shower, Shep? Coop seems to be monopolizing the other one.”

“Miles!” Casey says again. “Ohmigod!”

“Aww, you can wait,” Ty interjects, smiling. “Don’t you want some breakfast, first?”

“ _Ty_! Oh my _god_ , please stop asking him questions!” Casey says, looking up at the ceiling in desperation. “Yes, Miles, go use the shower. No, Ty, he doesn’t want some breakfast! And… and… David!”

“I’m almost finished?” David guesses, gesturing to his plate.

“Join me in the kitchen, please!” Casey says.

“Guess I could get seconds,” David agrees, standing up. Casey stands, too, his barely-touched plate in hand, and he gives both Miles and Ty a hard glare before he follows David into the kitchen.

Casey sets his plate down on the counter and says, “We are pretending we didn’t see that, and we are carrying on like normal people who do not know these things.”

David shrugs. “Less I know about Brown the better. You want to head on over in just a minute?”

“Yes, I think that’s an excellent plan,” Casey says. He quickly eats his four whole bites of Atkins scramble, making dramatic grimaces and faces of suffering at David during the process. David snorts and shakes his head at the faces, like he usually does. While they wait for Danny, Casey gets his wallet and phone from David’s room, and by the time he’s back in the common area, Danny’s ready to go.

“Do you like it?” Danny asks, gesturing to his shirt. “Brittany bought it online.” The white T-shirt has big block letters that say ‘I’m not bi, but my girlfriend is’. 

“Well, that will probably keep you from getting hit on too much, right?” Casey offers.

Danny laughs. “Yeah, probably.”

“Are you bringing your camera?” Casey asks David, side-eying him. 

“Trust me, you’ll understand why,” David says, picking up the bag with his camera. 

“Don’t take my picture!” Casey demands, as the three of them hurry out the door while Miles’ shower is still running. 

“Case.” David looks mildly affronted. “Would I take your picture spontaneously?” he asks as they head down the stairs. 

“Um. Only _always_!”

David laughs and takes Casey’s hand as they walk up to North Avenue. “Did you want to be closer to the end of the parade or is North and Peachtree good?”

“Is there a better end?” Casey asks. He swings their hands as they walk. The temperature is perfect, the sky bright blue with only a few fluffy white clouds floating by, and Casey can definitely see why Atlanta holds their Pride activities in October, not June. 

“Depends on if you want to get down to the festival afterwards or just back to campus, I guess,” David says with a shrug. 

“Do you have some other place to be?” Casey asks him. “I don’t have anyplace else to be.”

“Not until at least nine,” David says cheerfully. “Closer to Piedmont Park it is, then.”

“It goes all the way down to the park?” Danny asks. “That’s really cool.”

As they walk, Casey sees a man pushing a cart with beads, rainbow flags, and other Pride paraphernalia. “Oh, David, look! Beads! And flags!”

“Case, you do not want to overpay for those, I promise,” David says, but he does pull out his camera and start snapping pictures, taking several before turning towards Casey and snapping three quickly. 

“See!” Casey squawks. “What is it with you people and all the photographs? Why do you like to take my picture so much?”

“We want to steal your soul,” David says with a casual shrug. 

“No, David, you did that last month,” Casey points out. “Now it’s just because… I don’t know why!”

“I can’t imagine,” David says, deadpan, and Danny laughs suddenly. 

“Take a picture of me, Special K. So’s I can send it to Britt.” David takes a few shots of Danny as they continue walking towards the festival. 

“It’s really crowded out here!” Casey says. The sidewalks are already more congested than during the actual parade at Columbus Pride. 

“Oh, it gets a lot more crowded,” David explains, his hand tightening on Casey’s. “About a hundred thousand people.”

Casey starts to laugh, but he stops when he realizes David is serious. “Really? That many people?”

“That many people.” David grins. “C’mon, we should check out all the booths.”

“David, look! T-shirts!” Casey says, pointing to one of the first booths. “We should buy shirts!”

“There’s a _lot_ of shirts,” David says. “Trust me. Save your money at first.” 

“Oh, David, cupcakes!” Casey says, as soon as he notices the cart selling rainbow-frosted cupcakes. “Unless there’s lots of cupcake booths, I’m buying cupcakes. Do you want a cupcake?”

“There’s lots of food booths,” David promises. “I’ll wait for a bit.”

“Well, you can have a bite of mine,” Casey offers. He pays for his cupcake, and then turns around to say, “Danny, did you— oh. Where did Danny go?”

“Probably one of the pet rescue places,” David says. “It’s fine. He knows how to get back to campus, and we all have our phones.”

“He already goes to that cat place all the time. How much more rescuing does he need to do, do you think?”

“I guess as long as there are homeless cats, he’ll keep doing it.” David takes a few more pictures, snapping a few more of Casey as he licks the frosting off the top of his cupcake.

“Is this for a cupcake documentary?” Casey demands.

“Shh! You’ll give away all my secrets!” David says, putting his arm around Casey’s shoulders as they walk away from the cupcake booth. Casey smiles happily and nibbles at the cupcake part of his cupcake, which is considerably less interesting now that the frosting is gone. As they make what seems to be a wide loop around part of the park, passing hundreds of booths, the path gets more and more crowded, until Casey has to press close to David’s side for the two of them to make it through the people.

“I’m starting to believe you about the hundred thousand people thing,” Casey says.

David laughs. “Ready to head up and get a spot for the parade?”

“Can we go by the frozen lemonade cart on the way out? It’s getting warm!”

“Sure. I might get another sandwich.”

David does buy another sandwich, and Casey buys a frozen lemonade, and then David puts his arm back around Casey, eating his sandwich one handed as they start walking back up towards the parade route.

“Do you want a bite?” Casey asks, holding up a spoon of frozen lemonade.

“Mmm, in a sec,” David mumbles through a mouthful of sandwich. He swallows before speaking again. “We should have brought some water bottles or something.”

“We can probably overpay for some from those cart guys,” Casey says. “Here.” He offers David the spoonful of lemonade again. 

David eats the spoonful and nods. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

Once they make it out of the park, the crowd thins a little, but Casey doesn’t move away from David’s side. He also doesn’t pay too much attention to where they’re walking, just happily eating his frozen lemonade and watching all the interesting-looking people, occasionally offering a bite of his lemonade to David. 

“That’s a big flag,” Casey comments. “Not as big as Puck’s, though.”

“I still haven’t seen one that big, since,” David admits. He freezes for a split second, almost flushing. “I mean. Um.”

Casey starts laughing and leans against David even more. “It’s true, though.”

“Well.” David bites his lip. “Yeah. Still.”

“I like those houses, though,” Casey says. “I like the whole city, really.” He looks up at David, then back down at his lemonade. “Do you think you’ll want to stay in Atlanta? After college, I mean.”

“It’s a good size for a city,” David says thoughtfully. “Good weather, too. I don’t think I’d want to live in the suburbs, though.”

“Me, either. I’d want to stay in the city. One of those old houses, maybe.”

“Yeah. I like being able to walk places, really. I mean, I know we drive across campus to get doughnuts or go to Rocky Mountain, but we technically don’t have to.”

“Right! We could walk to pretty much anywhere we needed to go,” Casey agrees. “It’s nice. Or we could ride a bike. If you had a bike with a basket on it, you could do all the grocery shopping and just ride the bike to and from!”

“Maybe you should get a basket,” David says, grinning as they stop to cross the street. “I’m thinking more like a wheelbarrow.”

“Maybe a really _big_ basket,” Casey concedes. David suddenly stops walking, so Casey asks, “Oh, are we already at the parade-watching spot?”

“Well, we’re at _a_ spot,” David says, turning them slightly and then positioning Casey in front of him, the arm that had been around Casey’s shoulders now draped down one side of Casey’s chest. Casey exhales slowly and leans back against David. A light wind ruffles the trees lining the sidewalk, so sunshine falls across Casey’s face, and he closes his eyes and relaxes into the warmth of the sun and David’s chest behind him.

They’ve been standing there for almost ten minutes when Casey suddenly realizes they never stopped to get any water, and that David’s probably standing there being thirsty. “Oh no, we never got any water!” Casey says.

“Oh, right.” David sighs slightly. “Hate to lose our spot now.” 

“We should definitely get some, though,” Casey says. “You were thirsty.” He doesn’t make any effort to move away from David’s chest, despite his words. 

“Well, yeah, but you see the crowds, Case.”

“You shouldn’t let yourself get dehydrated, though.”

“Here,” a female voice from ground-level says, and a water bottle appears at hip height. “We have plenty.” 

Casey looks down at the older lesbian couple sitting on the curb. “Oh. Thanks!”

“Do you want a fan or two?” the second woman offers. “We picked up some extra ones.”

“Sure!” Casey says, accepting one of the fans. He uses it to fan himself and David at the same time. 

The woman with the fans looks at Casey’s Pride Alliance shirt and smiles. “Are you two students at Tech?”

“Yeah,” David answers from behind Casey. “We are. Not marching, though.”

Both women nod, and the one who offered Casey the water bottle asks, “So how long have you boys been together?” 

“Um,” Casey says.

“Well, uh.” David says, his arm pressing a little more heavily against Casey’s chest. “You know.”

“Too long to keep track?” the woman says, laughing and elbowing her partner. “I know the feeling.”

“That’s just your memory going. Luckily you can’t remember life before me!” her partner retorts.

Casey giggles and leans more of his weight back against David. That doesn’t sound bad to him, being with someone so long that he can’t remember life before. At least, not if that someone’s David. He doesn’t have a chance to answer the woman, though, because then he hears the sound of motorcycle engines.

“I think I hear the parade,” Casey says, tilting his head to talk to David.

“Yeah, the ladies start it off,” David agrees.

“Just like in Columbus. That’s nice!” 

“A lot more, though,” David says, chuckling. 

David’s right. There’s a lot more motorcycles, and a lot more of everything else, and by the third or fourth float, Casey reaches for David’s free hand and holds it tightly. “There’s just so many people!” he says. 

“Kinda awesome, isn’t it?” David replies. Casey nods, his head still resting against the middle of David’s chest. They watch floats for various Atlanta businesses and organizations—including the gay swimming team, the Rainbow Trout—and marching bands, church groups, and school groups. When the group for the Atlanta school system PFLAG passes, Casey is surprised by his eyes starting to tear up.

“There’s so many of them,” he says softly, not entirely sure if David can even hear him. David’s arm tightens around Casey, angling it across Casey’s chest. Dave’s head leans against the top of Casey’s head briefly before Dave straightens slightly again. 

More floats and groups and bands pass, and David doesn’t loosen his hold on Casey. Everything feels safe and good, and Casey tilts his head up again to say, “We should stay in Atlanta forever.”

The corner of David’s mouth lifts in a smile. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “We should.”

 

**Thursday, October 16th, 2014: Georgia Tech campus, Atlanta — Ty**

“Are you ready?” Ty asks Casey, walking into the living area of the dorm. Casey might not know where they’re going, but Ty can explain that as they walk.

“Sure. Do I need to bring a snack or will they have snacks wherever we’re going?” Casey asks. 

“I think there’s snacks. If not, I’ll find something,” Ty says. He opens the door with a grin. “Not even going to ask where it is?”

“I’ve found it’s sometimes better not to know in advance,” Casey says, then screws up his face. “As long as you aren’t going to use me to pick up girls. I’ll tell Mercedes, because it’s rude to use me to pick up girls, and also she’s loud and she scares me.”

“I am no fool, Casey,” Ty assures him as they head across campus. “Also, I’m not Coop. See? No hat.”

“I’m uncertain whether Coop will be requiring my girl-getting services or not,” Casey says, shaking his head. “Outlook is unclear.”

“I think that was Coop’s one experiment,” Ty responds. “Personally, I think engaging in any kind of activity if you’re both drunk is probably a bad plan.”

“Oh, definitely,” Casey says. “A very bad plan.”

“Casey, I know he’s your friend and all, but sometimes Miles Brown seems like a bad plan,” Ty says with a slight wince.

Casey shrugs. “He’s not a bad guy, really. He’s just how he is.” He shrugs again. “When I needed him, he was there. He was always there. He is how he is, but he’s that, too.”

Ty shrugs himself, then points ahead of them. “And here we are, safe at Student Services, where we will be attending the evening’s SGA meeting.”

“Um. Why?”

“You said you wanted to try everything,” Ty says brightly. 

“No, I said I wanted to try every _club_ ,” Casey stresses. “Because that one time I said I wanted to try everything, David got upset and made that noise.”

Ty laughs and leads the way to the correct room. “But Student Government Association is where they allocate the money for every club, see?”

“Ohh, so that’s important, then,” Casey says. “We should tell them not to give any money to those guys in the French building basement.”

“Exactly,” Ty agrees. “And then— oh, hey. You tried the bowling alley yet?”

“No. Is that really a real thing? I thought maybe it was a story they told freshmen to trick them.”

Ty laughs. “Nah, it’s real. You can even take bowling for a PE credit.”

“You know, you’d think I’d be good at bowling since I’m from Lima, but I’m really not,” Casey says, shaking his head sadly. 

“Well, I’m going to show you the bowling alley after we watch some government in action,” Ty decides. “I think they have some candy for sale, plus the popcorn.”

“Real candy? Or that really bad chocolate like the band used to sell?”

Ty laughs. “Real candy, Casey.”

“Because people have differing opinions on what constitutes real candy,” Casey continues. “I don’t really think chocolate counts as candy at all. It’s really in sort of its own class.”

“My dad’s pretty sure chocolate is actually its own food group,” Ty concedes. “C’mon, grab one of those agendas and we’ll pretend to know what they’re talking about.”

 

**Friday, October 17th, 2014: North Avenue South dorm, Atlanta — Dave**

Dave has never _actually_ slept in the architecture building. He's heard of a few people who have, and when he finally leaves late one night—early one morning, more like—he can almost understand why. Campus is deserted, there's no traffic when he crosses North Avenue, and when he unlocks the door to the dorm, all of the lights are out. 

Dave leaves his backpack in the living area, even though normally he wouldn't, but he's going to have to go back to the studio in the morning and hope no one notices he's skipping morning workout. He hasn't skipped at all this season, and he'll get it done, it'll just be after the 11 am deadline for his project. 

The hall is dark, but Dave knows it well enough to stumble into the bathroom and then into his own room, changing into his pajamas with just one low lamp. The entire week has been spent in a blur of studio time, workouts, and practice; Dave's almost certain he's skipped a few classes, but at least all of his actual midterms were the week before. He can't imagine that he's missed too much, not the week after midterms. 

Despite the time on his clock, Dave gets distracted shuffling through a few papers he left on his desk earlier in the day, and the number on the clock is even more painful when he finally winces and stands up from his desk. He switches on the lamp attached to the bed and switches off the desk lamp, setting the alarm on his clock before starting to set the alarm on his phone. He'll probably need both of them. 

Finally satisfied, Dave starts to climb into bed, then stops, startled. Casey's curled up in the corner of the bed, sleeping solidly. Dave's certain he couldn't have moved since Dave entered the room, even, and Dave shakes his head. He slides into bed and stifles a yawn, turning out the lamp as Casey turns in his sleep towards Dave. 

Ty had, possibly, mentioned something he was going to do that evening, and that he was going to try to drag Casey along, but Dave admittedly hadn't been sure what it was. Whatever it had been, it probably went late, and Ty had Casey stay over. Not as late as Dave, obviously, but still late. 

Casey's head rests on Dave's shoulder, and Dave closes his eyes, letting his body finally relax. Casey does the same, without waking, his body uncurling from the tight ball it had been held in when Dave first saw him. Dave thinks it's possible Casey handled the academic work of midterms better than the four of them with years of experience put together, but Dave knows Casey sacrificed at least a little bit of sleep. 

Dave shifts his position again, careful not to jostle Casey, and he can feel sleep sneaking up on him as Casey adjusts to match him. Despite the game on Saturday, the weekend will finally feel free, and maybe then he'll be able to stay awake in bed for more than two minutes after he lies down. Just before he drifts into unconsciousness, Dave can feel Casey's hand move, lying across Dave's upper arm, and Dave starts to smile. 

 

**Wednesday, October 22nd, 2014: Georgia Tech campus — Casey**

It’s a very rare Wednesday that Casey goes to Pride Alliance alone. He’s come to think of Wednesdays and Sundays as his and David’s days, because they’re the only days they can consistently count on spending any time together that isn’t fifteen minutes here, a quick lunch there, falling asleep on the sofa together watching a movie, or Casey crashing in Dave’s room under what is still a very platonic sort of arrangement. 

Casey likes to pretend that the platonicness doesn’t bother him, and it doesn’t, inasmuch as it means he gets to spend time with David and have fun with him. Part of him feels like they’re getting stuck in their own attempts to make everything perfect or waiting for the ‘right’ opportunity to present itself, though. He didn’t notice it at first, but more and more, Casey can sense the undercurrent of both of them looking for a capital-M ‘Moment’, and if Casey’s life experience has taught him anything, it’s that Moments aren’t any kind of guarantee.

Still, he can only trust that they somehow, eventually, will get it sorted. Even if they aren’t together in an official capacity, they’re not _not_ together, and that’s something. David is something Casey can rely on completely; they’ll get there, Casey knows it. 

That’s why when Casey sits down at the Pride Alliance meeting and sees a somewhat familiar face, his first reaction isn’t to feel uncomfortable. His first response to seeing _That Josh_ , with his giant teeth and stupid blond hair, is to feel just a little big smug. Maybe [That Josh](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Zo2mL-Uu3nFpuRQ9KtUOyEJsSCtX6wK-QZ3wzxJxevA/pub) wasn’t terribly upset when David dumped him—though he should have been—and maybe he doesn’t care at all anymore, but the pettiest and most jealous reaches of Casey’s brain just want to shout, “He’s mine. I have him and you don’t. I win and you lose.”

Casey doesn’t shout that, of course, because that would be very rude and disruptive, but he thinks it very hard in That Josh’s direction. He might even stare a little while he’s thinking it, because That Josh keeps giving him uncomfortable–looking sideways glances, like maybe he isn’t sure who Casey is or why he’s looking at him— though the possibility exists that he’s psychic and hearing Casey’s thoughts, but Casey thinks that isn’t highly probable.

Over the course of the meeting, That Josh occasionally glances at Casey again, first looking puzzled, then nodding to himself, and then sort of shaking his head. That’s the point at which Casey knows That Josh recognizes him, and the next time That Josh looks in his direction, Casey makes eye contact and smiles.

Well, it’s less that he _smiles_ and more that he slowly smiles, letting his grin widen and widen, and That Josh looks vaguely horrified, but unable to look away. Casey sits there beaming at him for the rest of the meeting, and while it’s probably a childish moment, it’s a very satisfying one, too, and almost makes up for David missing Pride Alliance for some architecture lecture. 

Almost.

 

**Saturday, October 25th, 2014: Bobby Dodd Stadium at Historic Grant Field, Atlanta — Dave**

After they barely manage to win their game against Virginia Tech, Dave hits the showers and then heads outside the locker room with a few others from the offensive line, a few linebackers trailing behind them. Dave can spot Casey waiting, leaning against a column, but what he isn’t expecting is what his teammates do. 

“Hey, Casey,” Kilgore says, and before Casey can respond, Thompson echoes him. 

“Nice facepaint, Casey!” Widmer says after that.

“Hi, Matt. Hi, Kyle. Thank you, Jason,” Casey says with a big grin. “I haven’t made the leap to full-face yet, so I thought the number would be good. I got my friend Bill to do it, too!”

“Easing into it?” Kilgore asks, grinning back at Casey. “Good plan.”

“I’ll probably be ready by the time you kick Georgia’s ass,” Casey says confidently. He turns to Dave with a concerned look on his face. “Are you okay, David?”

“What? Oh, yeah. Fine.” Dave shakes his head slightly as the other guys walk off. “Starving, though. I thought I could persuade you to get an FO.”

“Hmm. Maybe if you made a really sad face,” Casey says. 

Dave laughs. “Yeah. Or I could just order myself one and taunt you with it.”

“Then _I_ would make a really sad face!”

“Maybe we’ll just order you one, then?” Dave suggests, starting to walk towards North Avenue. 

“Maybe you should order a big one and I’ll share yours?” Casey sounds like he’s about to start discussing sugar cookies, and Dave laughs again. 

“The biggest one they have?” he asks. “Are you sure you’d leave enough for me? I know you love a FO,” he teases.

“I guess we’ll just have to try it and see!”

 

**Tuesday, October 28th, 2014: North Avenue South dorm — Casey**

By the fourth time Casey has to erase and restart the same problem set, he’s aware he’s probably making some slightly frustrated noises. Or extremely frustrated noises. He’s actually on the verge of just balling up the paper and throwing it across the room when Danny passes behind him, peering over Casey’s shoulder as he walks by. 

“Oh, I love those!” Danny says. “You have to use the theorem you probably learned at the beginning of the semester.”

“Hmm?” Casey says, looking up from the partially-crumpled paper.

“That should be a mu, for starters,” Danny says, dropping down beside Casey. “Lemme see.”

Casey hands the paper over to Danny, feeling slightly confused, but confused is better than frustrated. Danny plucks the pencil from Casey’s hand and quickly works the problem, showing all the steps.

“See? It’s not like those.” He points to a different problem in the textbook. “Trying to trick you.”

“It is?”

“You know Tech likes to shaft you,” Danny says with a solemn nod. “I swear they get their textbooks custom-printed for Calculus I and II.”

“Uh huh,” Casey says quietly, watching Danny smooth out the paper and start writing down the problem again. 

“Here, try it again,” Danny offers, handing Casey the paper and pencil. Casey starts working through the problem and gets to the point where he got hung up on his previous attempts. Danny nudges him and points to where he worked out the problem at the top of the page. This time, it all makes sense, and Casey is able to finish the problem without getting stuck again.

“Danny?” Casey asks. “Are you… really good at math?”

Danny laughs. “Hope so, since that’s my major.”

“You’re a math major,” Casey says, it suddenly dawning on him that they’ve all had the wrong impression about Danny. “Danny, you’re _really_ smart, aren’t you?”

“Wouldn’t have got through English without Special K,” Danny says, shrugging a little. “But yeah, I’m good at math.”

“If Coop knew, he’d make you help him with all his homework.”

Danny grins at Casey. “Why do you think Coop doesn’t know?”

“I will never speak a word of it,” Casey promises, holding up his fist. Danny nods and bumps his fist to Casey’s, then continues into the kitchen. 

 

**Friday, October 31st, 2014: Publix at Piedmont, Atlanta — Dave**

Dave parks the truck and looks at Casey with a grin. “You could put on a hat for slightly more authenticity.”

“Maybe they have some of those costumes with the plastic masks!” Casey says. “All kinds of places have those. It might not be too late for me to be Harry Potter or a dinosaur.”

“I think we would have had to hit Walmart for costumes,” Dave says. “Maybe next year we can go to that convention thing on Labor Day weekend and you can dress up then.”

“Hmm. Acceptable, but only if I get to pick our costumes.”

“You, not we,” Dave counters with a grin as they walk inside. “Okay, is this a basket of candy or a cart of candy?”

“I guess it depends on whether you want to have some candy, too,” Casey says. 

Dave laughs and pulls out a cart as they walk inside. “Maybe I’ll get chili ingredients while I’m here.”

“No, we’re here for candy, David!” Casey insists. “No chili! This is candy time. It’s important we give the candy our undivided attention!”

“What about bacon?” Dave argues. “It’s meat candy. We can get candy for you and I’ll get bacon.”

“Meat candy,” Casey repeats, and starts to laugh. “Oh, David. That sounds— well, it sounds a little bit like sugar cookie!”

“If you say so,” Dave says, chuckling for a moment. “Okay. Here we are, Case. The wall of candy.”

“I love this wall!”

“I’m pretty sure this is a lot more candy than any of those parties,” Dave says under his breath, even though he knows Casey will still hear him. 

Casey starts to laugh. “But if we’d gone to the parties, we could have gotten candy for free. Now you have to buy me _all_ this candy, just because you won’t wear a costume. It’s a terrible, terrible shame.” He shakes his head like he’s sorry, but he keeps laughing.

“Brat,” Dave says, shaking his head ruefully. “The people throwing the parties didn’t say costumes were required. That was all you.”

“Ty said they were required. Ty knows these things!”

“Ty lied. You and he were scheming.”

Casey tries to look innocent. “Why would Ty lie to me, David?”

“Because you two were scheming,” Dave repeats. “Last year he had me carrying around an action-figure bicycle. No more. I’d hate to see what he and you together would come up with.”

“You dressed up for Ty and you won’t dress up for me,” Casey says, with a fake pout. “Now I’m horribly sad.”

Dave snorts. “Brat,” he repeats. “Yeah, ’cause it’d be _two_ evil geniuses ganging up on me. No way, Case.”

“I’ll just have to make myself feel better by planning our costumes for that convention thing, then,” Casey says, throwing in a dramatic sniffle for effect.

“ _Your_ costume,” Dave stresses. “Well, start loading up the cart.”

Casey looks up and down the aisle of candy. “Do you think they have bags of ring pops?”


	20. November 2014

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So very, very close.

**Saturday, November 1st, 2014: North Avenue South dorm, Atlanta — Dave**

The morning after Halloween, Dave and Casey are still the only ones awake at 10 am, which Dave thinks is going to be interesting since they have a game later that afternoon. He knows Ty and Danny came home really late – they were loud and definitely drunk. Coop was quieter and not drunk, but the fact that he’s still asleep isn’t a huge surprise. 

At first Dave thinks the sound is on his laptop, or Casey’s. He closes all his windows and turns down his sound, but he still hears it. “Hey, turn your volume all the way down for a second?” Dave says to Casey. 

“Sure,” Casey answers, turning down the volume. “What’s that weird noise?”

“I don’t know.” Dave shrugs. “Maybe Danny left the webcam on again? It could be Miss Cuddle Tits, or whatever her name is.”

“David! Miss _Butter Nibs_!” Casey says, his tone somewhere between shocked and amused. “But it does sound like a cat. I bet Danny wouldn’t mind if I just stepped in there and turned his speakers off. He probably won’t even wake up.”

Casey sets his laptop down and walks back to Danny’s room. The noise stops, but Casey doesn’t come back. Dave frowns and listens for a few moments before standing and going down the hall. Danny’s sprawled on his bed, snoring, and Casey’s sitting in the floor, holding a small orange kitten.

“That’s a kitten,” Dave says finally, still standing in the doorway to Danny’s room. “That’s an actual kitten.”

“Shh,” Casey whispers. “Isn’t it cute?”

“It’s a cat,” Dave says. “A cat in Danny’s room, and Danny’s just snoring.”

“It’s just a _tiny_ cat, David!” Casey says. He stands up, carefully cradling the kitten in one arm. “I bet it was lonely because Danny was sleeping.” He nods his head in the direction of the common area, and Dave steps back, shaking his head. 

“Cats don’t get lonely, I don’t think,” Dave says. “Hungry and thirsty, yeah.”

Casey glances around Danny’s room and then leans over, holding onto the kitten. He stands back up with a small can of cat food in his other hand. “Then we should feed it. Shouldn’t we, very small cat? We should feed you!”

“Use Danny’s plate,” Dave says, nodding a little. “Or Coop’s. But not mine.” 

“You can use my plate,” Casey says to the cat, in the same baby-pitched voice he’s used every time he addresses it. “I don’t mind. You’re so cute! Isn’t it so cute, David?”

“He or she is cute,” Dave says grudgingly. “But I wouldn’t use your plate.”

“Fine, we’ll use Danny’s,” Casey says. “And I’ll put some water in Danny’s coffee mug, too. Come on, little kitty. We’ll get your food and water.” He carries the kitten into the kitchen, where Dave can hear the cabinet doors banging and then the water running, before Casey returns with the kitten, a plate of food, and a coffee mug of water all balanced in his arms.

Dave shakes his head and takes the coffee mug from Casey, setting it in the floor near the wall. “Wonder how long he’s been hiding that kitten.”

“He’s been keeping his door shut since Pride, but I thought maybe it was a Brittany thing,” Casey says. “Oh! Do you think he got the kitten at the pet rescue booth at Pride?” He lifts up the kitten and holds its face near his. “Are you a Pride kitty?”

“Maybe we’ll buy _Danny_ a rainbow collar for it,” Dave says. “Since it’s obviously his kitten.”

“It could be _everyone’s_ kitten, David. Everyone who lives here, including me, even though I don’t really live here.”

“No, Casey. The kitten is not everyone’s.” Dave chuckles for a minute. “I think Danny would have told us about the kitten, for starters.”

“Maybe he thought we’d be upset,” Casey says. He finally sets the kitten down by the plate of food, though he pets it while it eats. “I’m not upset, though. I wonder what its name is. Oh, and if it’s a boy or a girl.”

“You could go wake Danny up and ask?” Dave says with a laugh. “Or you could check. The sex, that is. I don’t think you’ll find its name by looking.”

“That seems intrusive,” Casey says. “I’ll just ask Danny. _After_ the kitten eats.”

Dave shrugs. “Okay. At least we figured out it wasn’t a virus on the laptops.”

“Marigold?” Dave can hear Danny quietly saying. “Hey, Marigold? Where’d you go?” Dave looks up in time to see Danny shuffling down the hall, head in one hand and wincing at the light. 

“Oh, is your name Marigold?” Casey asks the kitten. “That’s a nice name. You look like a Marigold.”

“Aww, shit, did she get out?” Danny asks. “Sorry.”

“I thought she was a pop-up ad,” Dave admits. 

“I fed her,” Casey says. “David thought she was probably hungry, and she was! Also, I used your plate and your coffee mug.”

“A pop-up ad?” Danny shakes his head slowly, then stops and winces again. “Special K, I don’t understand you sometimes.” He looks down at the kitten and grins. “Hey, Marigold, you want to go back to bed now?”

“She’s just fine out here with me,” Casey says, continuing to pet the kitten. 

“Case,” Dave says with a laugh. “Remember, Danny’s cat.”

Casey scowls at Dave, still petting the cat. “Danny’s going back to bed. He could let her stay out here with me!”

Dave shakes his head. “You can’t steal the cat. Hey, did you get her at Pride?” Dave asks Danny. 

“Yeah!” Danny grins. “Just tucked her in my shirt and brought her home.”

“I’m not stealing her,” Casey mutters to himself. “I’m borrowing her.”

Dave snorts as Danny bends down. “Hey, little girl,” Danny says to Marigold. “Sorry I slept through breakfast.”

“I’ll watch her for you any time, Danny,” Casey says, looking at the kitten longingly. 

“Aww, thanks.” Danny scoops Marigold up. “She’s pretty self-sufficient unless I get hungover, luckily.” He grins sheepishly. “We still have a couple of hours, right? I didn’t misread the clock?”

“Yeah, you’ve got time,” Dave assures him. “Remember, later game today.”

“Right, right.” Danny nods. “Thank you Jesus, since it’s the day after Halloween.”

Dave laughs. “Yeah, I guess that was lucky.” Danny waves over his shoulder and trundles down the hall, Marigold sitting in the crook of his elbow. 

Casey sighs and looks dejected. “She’s just so cute.”

“Maybe once she’s bigger Danny’ll let her roam around more,” Dave offers.

“Maybe we could get a pet,” Casey says, settling himself next to Dave on the sofa. “Not now, I mean, but maybe some time.”

“I always wanted a dog,” Dave admits, “but you definitely can’t have a dog in the dorms.”

“Maybe a very small dog.”

Dave shakes his head. “Nah. Anyway, dogs don’t use litter boxes.”

 

**Thursday, November 6th, 2014: Student Center, Atlanta — Casey**

A freshman ice cream social sounds like a perfectly valid way of spending a Thursday evening, especially since David’s usually in the studio until late and Casey has nothing pressing to work on for his classes. He ropes Bill into going with him, mainly for the sake of not having to stand alone next to a table of ice cream toppings, looking uncomfortable. This way, he and Bill can stand _together_ next to a table of ice cream toppings, looking uncomfortable.

“I’m still not so sure this is a good a idea,” Bill complains, as they’re walking into the Student Center where this ice cream event is happening. “I haven’t had a lot of success with anything called a ‘social’.”

“It’ll be great,” Casey assures him. “Really. I’ve been to all kinds of things on campus, and they’ve all been pretty good. Well, except for the tin-foil hat club meeting.”

“Tin-foil hat club?” Bill asks, looking confused and slightly concerned.

“That’s what Ty calls them,” Casey says shrugging. “But that’s not this. This is ice cream, and that means this is a great event.”

“I’m lactose-intolerant.”

“Hmm. Well, then it’s a _good_ event, not a great one,” Casey offers. “Anyway, remember that thing I told you about my hair? It’s like a magical girl magnet! And since _I_ don’t want any girls…”

“Alright,” Bill huffs. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Casey shrugs again, because really, why would he make up girl-attracting hair? It’s not like it does _him_ any good, other than apparently it makes Bill a little more willing to come to an ice cream social. Casey walks up to the ice cream table and puts a small scoop of ice cream into a bowl, then covers it with an array of sprinkles, candies, and colored sugar. He puts whipped cream and four maraschino cherries on top, then sits down next to Bill, who gives his bowl a weird look.

“Is there any actual ice cream in that?” Bill asks.

“There’s _some_ ,” Casey says. “Anyway, the toppings are the best part. You can get a lot of mileage out of ice cream toppings. Like, consider the maraschino cherry.”

“Okay. Why am I considering maraschino cherries?”

“They look like candy. They taste like candy,” Casey explains. “Well, actually they taste like _red_ , but red’s a perfectly valid flavor, so…”

Bill squints up one of his eyes, looking dubious. “Red’s a—”

“Just go with it, Bill,” Casey says. “But so maraschino cherries taste like candy, but they’re actually fruit, so then I can feel good about eating them. Not that I feel bad about eating candy or anything, but this way I can tell David I had fruit and it’s completely honest.”

Bill doesn’t look any less dubious. “Why do you need to tell David you had fruit?”

“Well, I don’t _need_ to, obviously,” Casey says, “but he always says that candy doesn’t count as food.”

“It doesn’t… huh? Why does it need to count as a food? Casey, I’m really confused.”

“Oh. Hmm.” Casey thinks about it for a moment, and then says, “Well, there’s a lot of backstory, and it all gets kind of complicated, really. So, um. Instead of that, we’ll just see if we can get girls to come talk to you, alright?”

“Sure, Casey. That’ll be fine,” Bill says. 

 

**Monday, November 10th, 2014: East Campus Georgia Tech, Atlanta — Dave**

Dave can tell that Casey is convinced that the rest of them should have been done eating dinner a lot more quickly, but Dave and Danny are still finishing their plates, and Ty has a huge bowl of ice cream that he’s slowly attacking. They really are almost finished when a couple of guys from the team pass by the table. 

“Hey, guys. Hey, Casey,” Jones says as they walk.

“Hi, Andre,” Casey says. 

Dave knows he probably looks puzzled when he glances at Casey, but he shrugs as they all take their trays over to the tray return. Once they’re outside the dining hall, he looks at Casey again. “Case, when did you meet Jones? Or, I guess, when did Jones meet you?”

“At the washing machines,” Casey says. “He already knew who I was, though.”

“Uh. Okay.” Dave shrugs again. “How’d he know who you were?”

“I don’t know. Ty, maybe?”

Dave turns to look at Ty. “Ty?”

Ty puts his hands out in front of him and shrugs. “I just introduce him around, if people drop by or whatever.”

“That’s true,” Casey says. “He does.”

“Todd and some of them were asking who he was, back at the start of the semester,” Coop says. “Todd was all, ‘Who’s that little redheaded kid that hangs out in the building all the time?’ but I just told him it was cool, that Casey belongs to you, so then Todd and them were all cool with it, too.”

Dave mouths ‘the fuck?’ because he has no idea what that’s supposed to mean, then shakes his head. “That’s— uh. That’s something, anyway.”

“Yeah, they thought he was casing the joint or something,” Coop says. “I dunno. I guess he looks suspicious.”

“It’s true!” Casey agrees, sounding more than a little excited about it. “I do!”

“Suspicious,” Dave repeats as they cross North Avenue and head towards the dorm. “Casey looks suspicious?”

“I look like a dangerous individual of questionable moral standing,” Casey says. He somehow manages to look both thrilled and intensely serious at the same time, and he deadpans, “Mothers, lock up your sons.”

Dave turns to stare at Casey, tilting his head a little, and he notices Ty doing the same. 

“My mom’s not here,” Danny points out. 

“Maybe Coop’s mom _should_ lock him up,” Ty finally says slowly. 

Casey starts to laugh, clearly trying not to, but that only results in him snorting several times. Eventually he does just start to laugh, bending over a little. 

Coop looks like he’s going to protest, then he deflates slightly and says, “Well, damn. Maybe you’re right, Ty.”

“So essentially y’all have been… Casey ambassadors?” Dave asks. 

Ty shrugs. “Sure.”

“I’m a sovereign nation,” Casey says, still laughing. “You need a passport to visit me.”

“But yeah, I think most of the team knows who Casey is,” Ty says, grinning. 

“Yeah,” Danny says under his breath. “He’s your not-a-boyfriend.”

Dave can’t decide how to react, exactly, so he elbows Danny, tries to glare, and rolls his eyes all, then shakes his head. “Think you’re so fucking clever,” he grumbles under his own breath. They’ll find their moment, without any interference from well-meaning dormmates.

 

**Sunday, November 16th, 2014: North Avenue South dorm, Atlanta — Casey**

“And not only did he eat the _whole case_ of those Clif bars Aunt Shannon sent me,” Casey says, hearing his voice rising in anger as he continues to tell David the sordid tale of how Murph has pretty much been making himself at home amongst Casey’s personal belongings while Casey’s spending most of his time at David’s dorm. “Not only that, but I think he’s been wearing some of my shirts. _Wearing_ my _shirts_ , David! My shirts!”

David wrinkles his nose almost comically. “Is he washing them? Or is your laundry pile just growing?”

“That’s how I knew, partially! They smelled like the wrong detergent, but they also smelled like he’d let them sit in the machine,” Casey says. “And even the ones he didn’t wear have… have… _Murph prints_ on them now!”

“Oh, man, I hate when laundry mildews,” David sympathizes. He drapes his arm over Casey’s shoulders as he continues. “Is he taking anything else?”

“You know how I had those boxes of pens and pencils for if I ran out?”

“Yeah?”

“All. Gone.” Casey leans against David and shakes his head. “I had eight or nine boxes in there!”

“Is there a black market for that stuff?” David asks. “I mean, who could use that many boxes by himself?”

“Who knows what he’s even doing with them? And you know, I never did find those socks. I think I’m the victim of an extremely slow motion robbery,” Casey grumbles.

“You should mention it to the RA person, so they can confiscate any illegal pens.” David’s arm tightens a little around Casey. “But I suspect the Georgia Tech PD wouldn’t file a report.”

“I should set up surveillance. Or bear traps,” Casey says. He leans his head against David’s chest and sighs. “Do you think someone on campus could hook me up with those, or would I need to find a hunting or sporting goods store?”

“I don’t think they have those in with bats and treadmills, Case,” David says slowly. “I think you might need some kind of license or something to buy traps for hunting.”

“Hmm. You’re probably right. Still, I hate him, and I hate having my things where he can touch them, and he should be punished,” Casey says. “I could just move to the Lemon for the rest of the year.”

“I can see the story now. ‘Georgia Tech student living in car’, and then Coach will fly down here and make me do one of her workouts.”

“You can visit me in the Lemon,” Casey says. “Keep me company between the muggings and getting my coat stolen and things.” He reaches across David to take his free hand, and pulls it close, so their clasped hands are resting on Casey’s stomach. 

“Luckily you won’t need a coat most of the time,” David says quietly. David’s head turns to the side and tilts down slightly. Casey turns a little in David’s arms and tilts his face towards David, and David brushes his lips lightly against Casey’s. It’s been two years, two very long years, and Casey can hear himself making a soft noise as he leans up into the kiss, pressing his lips to David’s. 

David’s arms slide around Casey firmly, pulling Casey towards him, and Casey turns even more towards David, holding their clasped hands close to him as he puts his other arm around David’s neck, kissing him harder. Casey rises up on his knees to put himself closer to David’s height, and he moves one leg over David’s, so he’s straddling David’s leg while they kiss. 

Casey’s eyes are closed and he relaxes against David, letting David’s arm hold him up. Everything feels perfect, right up until a door slams loudly, startling both of them. Casey lets go of David at the same time David’s arm spasms, and suddenly Casey is tumbling backwards onto the floor where he lands with an audible thump. 

“Hey, Special K. Hey, Ca— uh, Casey? Why’re you on the floor?” Coop asks. 

“I’m fine!” Casey says from the floor. “That was, um. I’m fine!”

“That’s good, I guess,” Coop says. “You looking for something?”

“I’m fine!” Casey repeats. “You can go now!”

David offers Casey his hand silently, sitting back a little on the couch and glancing sideways at Coop. Coop looks between Casey and David a few times as Casey lets David help him onto his feet, and then back onto the sofa.

“Did I interrupt something?” Coop asks. “’Cause I’m just going back into the kitchen to heat something up, so don’t mind me.” He starts backing up slowly. “I’m not even here, hardly!”

“Oh, you’re here,” Casey mutters under his breath as Coop disappears into the kitchen. “Everybody knows you’re here.”

“He’s probably going to stink up the place, too,” David grumbles, frowning heavily.

Casey sighs. His shoulder hurts from how he landed on the floor, and he realizes he’s actually shaking slightly. He’d thought this was the moment, but apparently it was just the moment for Coop to interrupt and cause him bodily harm. “So,” Casey says quietly. “Do you want to, I don’t know. Go get a milkshake or something?”

“Yeah,” David says after a moment. “That’s good.”

“You know, if you change your mind about the bear traps,” Casey says, “I could probably loan you a few.”

 

**Friday, November 21st, 2014: Georgia Tech campus, Atlanta — Dave**

The last conference game of the season is against Boston College, and unluckily for Dave and the rest of the team, it’s BC’s turn to host. That means climbing on a bus for a seventeen hour trip to Newton, Massachusetts and missing a few classes, since Tech never flies the football team, except for a bowl game. 

Which is why Dave is awake at 5:30 am, getting ready to get on the bus that supposedly is leaving at 6 am sharp. He stretches and waits until he’s dressed before leaning over the bed to wake Casey up. Twice that week already, he’s found Casey asleep on the couch in the living area, books or laptop still open in his hands. For his own part, Dave feels like he’s spent more time in the studio than anywhere else, trying to get enough done on his project that’s due before Thanksgiving, since he won’t have the weekend to use at all. 

Dave’s also found Casey already asleep, curled up in Dave’s bed, when he’s returned from the studio late at night, and it feels to Dave more like they’re confirming each other is still alive than actually really seeing each other. Now Dave has the away game, and Casey will be at the Invitational Swim Meet while Dave’s gone, which means lunch on Monday will probably be their first actual conversation in a little bit. 

“Case,” Dave whispers, barely moving his hand on Casey’s shoulder.

“Hmm?” Casey mumbles, turning his face against the pillow. “Is it time?”

“Yeah, close enough,” Dave answers.

“Don’t want it to be time. Come back to bed.” Casey puts his arm over his face.

Dave chuckles. “Yeah, I wish,” he agrees. “You want to get up or just go back to sleep?”

“I’ll get up,” Casey says. He slowly pushes himself up to sitting and rubs his eyes. “There should be laws against this early.”

“Probably.” Dave stifles a yawn and picks up his bag. “And watch, inevitably someone’ll be late to the bus.”

“Probably Coop.” 

“Nah, we’ll make sure it’s not Coop,” Dave says, grinning a little. 

Casey swings his legs over the edge of the bed, making a grumpy face. “They should find a way to cut costs elsewhere so they can fly you to Boston. This is too early.”

“Yeah, I wish. We’re not the SEC, though,” Dave says, shaking his head. He opens the door and nearly runs into Ty, who is stumbling down the hall. 

“M’gonna go kick Coop’s ass out of bed,” Ty mumbles. 

“Good plan,” Dave says to Ty’s back, then walks towards the kitchen, where the lights are on and Danny is cheerfully making coffee, travel mugs lined up. 

“Morning, Special K! Morning, Casey!” Danny greets them, then turns back to the coffee. Dave leans on the counter and turns to look at Casey, who apparently grabbed one of Dave’s sweatshirts before they left the room, and one of Casey’s hands has disappeared into the sleeve.

“There’s something really wrong with him,” Casey whispers. “Nobody should be that happy before eight.”

Dave snorts. “Yeah, probably,” he says, as Ty appears, dragging Coop with him. 

“Good, we’re all here,” Ty says to himself. “Won’t be our dorm doing the extra push-ups.”

“Coffee’s done!” Danny announces, pouring it up and then rinsing the pot. “Let’s go claim our seats so we can go back to sleep. Oh, and Casey, you still feeding Marigold? Including Sunday."

“You have to give her back, Case,” Dave warns.

“She’ll be fine, Danny,” Casey says. “I’ll feed her and keep her company.”

“Yeah, I know,” Danny says, turning towards Ty after he speaks. 

“I wish I didn’t have to miss this game,” Casey says softly to Dave. “I’ll cheer extra hard next weekend, though.”

“Yeah, I know,” Dave says. “Swim fast and all that, though, yeah?”

“I’ll text you my times if you text me when you get there safely.”

“Don’t stay up waiting for it. We might get unlucky and end up outside a service center in New Jersey for hours because of Fletcher,” Dave says, shaking his head. “Don’t ever take a trip with Fletcher.”

Danny and Ty walk into the hall, Danny’s hand keeping the door open, and Ty says, “C’mon, Special K.” 

Dave and Casey stand there for a few seconds almost awkwardly before Dave pulls Casey into a hug. Casey goes up on his toes and puts his arms around Dave’s neck. Casey presses a soft kiss to Dave’s jaw and whispers, “See you Sunday,” before dropping back to his feet and taking a step back. 

“Sunday,” Dave agrees, then heads into the hall with a slight wave. Only two of the guys end up being late to the bus, and Dave laughs along with Ty when the captains assign them and their dormmates extra push-ups upon arrival at the hotel that night. 

Ty waits until after the bus passes under Spaghetti Junction before he pulls his earbuds out and turns to Dave. “So, Special K, I saw that.”

“Huh?” Dave pauses his music. “I was just putting it on shuffle.” That doesn’t really explain anything, but maybe it’ll confuse Ty. 

“What? No, not your music.” Ty laughs. “Why, you got _Cats_ or something on there? We used to have to listen to that once a week growing up.”

“What? No. No showtunes,” Dave answers. 

“Yeah, yeah. Anyway, I meant that kiss.”

“Oh.” Dave glances at Ty out of the corner of his eye. “Okay?”

“I’m just saying.” Ty grins. “Don’t think Coop and Danny noticed, but. Good for you.”

Dave snorts. “Glad to have your approval?”

Ty laughs. “Yeah, yeah. Like you didn’t know you did.” He pauses, then changes the subject. “Let’s take bets on who’s the second person to get the bus stopped. We all know the first one’ll be Fletcher.”

 

**Thursday, November 27th, 2014: Ty’s House, Alpharetta — Casey**

Ty’s Mama graciously accepts the pan of stuffing that David made and then puts it at the very back of the buffet table, like she’s worried that Ty’s brother’s little girls might get into it and eat some accidentally. Ty’s house is big, but it’s still almost overflowing with people: Ty’s parents, Ty’s older brother and his wife, their two little girls, Ty’s sister and her fiancé, Ty’s granny and her two sisters, Ty and Mercedes, Dave and Casey, and Ty’s parents’ grey standard poodle named Thorvald.

“And you must be Casey,” Ty’s Mama says. “Look at you. I want to make sure you get seconds before any of the rest of them,” she tells him with a wink. “Mama, did you see Casey’s gorgeous hair?” she calls into the next room. 

“I haven’t seen it yet, so you send him on in here when you’re done,” Ty’s granny shouts back. 

Ty’s Mama smiles at Casey. “You heard her. I don’t argue. But do you want a little something to tide you over until the meal starts?”

“Oh. Um. No, thank you, I think I’m fine,” Casey says. “I ate David’s bread while he was making the stuffing. He had to tell me ‘Stop eating all my bread, Case!’”

“Well, if you’re sure,” she says dubiously. “Go on in there and make sure Ty introduces you around. Manners, Boobear!” she yells. 

“Is Boobear another dog?” Casey asks, looking around a little anxiously, because Thorvald is large, and if there’s another one like him, Casey wants to be prepared.

“He’s a dog sometimes,” Ty’s sister says as she walks by, laughing. “Or he’s in the dog _house_ anyway, ’cause Mama and Cleo do _not_ get on.”

“Cleo?” Casey asks.

“Be nice,” Ty’s Mama admonishes Ty’s sister, but she sounds like she doesn’t mean it. “ _Mercedes_ is a lovely young woman.”

“And Boobear is Ty?” Casey tries not to smile or laugh, but he will definitely make sure to tell David as soon as he gets an opportunity.

“Tyler is my Boobear,” Ty’s Mama confirms. “Now go see my mother before she yells in here again,” she says with a smile.

“Okay, I’ll do that,” Casey says, and walks into the other room, where he finds David sitting on the sofa surrounded by old ladies, engaged in what appears to be an in-depth conversation. Casey stands very still so as not to attract their attention. He manages to stand unnoticed for a few minutes, before one of Ty’s aunts spots him. 

“Well, you do have such beautiful hair,” she agrees. “Come over here. We were just discussing the recent midterm elections.”

“Um. Thank you?” Casey says, taking a few hesitant steps in the direction of the sofa. David looks amused and moves on the sofa to leave room for Casey between David and the aunt that spoke. Casey shoots him a brief glare before wedging himself in the space provided. 

“So, I’m guessing you don’t play football,” says the woman who looks just like an older version of Ty’s Mama, so is probably the granny. “You an artist with all that hair.”

“No, I swim,” Casey says. 

“You wear one of them swim caps?” Ty’s granny asks. Casey nods. “How you fit all that hair up in your swim cap?”

“Gladys, you leave that boy alone,” the first aunt says. “You know darn well we got the rundown twice already on him, first from Tyler and then from Dave here.”

“Did you give them the rundown?” Casey whispers to David from the corner of his mouth.

“Down to your social,” David whispers back.

“They’ll never take me alive,” Casey replies, still whispering. 

David chuckles, his head shaking slightly. “Ty and Mercedes decided to ‘get some fresh air’ apparently,” he says to Casey.

“Does Ty’s Mama not like Mercedes? It sounded like maybe she doesn’t like Mercedes.” Casey slips his hand into David’s. 

“Oooh, that girl!” Ty’s granny hoots. “Nobody’s ever gonna be good enough for her baby.”

“I had noticed Ty didn’t mention the two of them together often,” David admits. 

Ty’s other aunt pipes up from the other side of David, “Cora’s just not ready to share him with another woman yet. She’ll pick one out for him when she is.”

“Well,” Casey says, with a straight face and a serious voice, “he _is_ her Boobear.”

 

**Thursday, November 27th, 2014: Ty’s House, Alpharetta — Dave**

Ty’s mama has assured all of them that it won’t be much longer before all the food is ready, which Dave and his stomach appreciate. Casey will appreciate it as well, judging by his body language. He’s sitting perfectly rigid between Ty’s nieces Kendra and Shana on the sofa, and Thor the grey poodle is lying across Casey’s feet. 

Of course, there’s a strong possibility that Casey wouldn’t be allowed to move if he attempted it, but he’s not even trying, despite Shana braiding Casey’s hair. Kendra isn’t braiding it, which is probably more because she’s three, not five; it looks more like she’s tying it in knots. 

“They caught him,” Ty stage-whispers. “They don’t take after me. I promise.”

“Are you kidding?” Ty’s brother Xavier says. “Those girls learned allll their tricks from Uncle Ty. Your boy’s never gonna get those braids out, either. Shana’s serious about her braiding.”

Dave shrugs. “Well, if you want to attempt to extract him from the dog, feel free,” he says, shaking his head. “But I’m not convinced any of those three are giving Case up easily.” Thor the grey poodle looks as pleased as Shana and Kendra, and they’re already grinning widely.

“Daddy!” Shana commands imperiously from behind Casey. “Bring Casey some water. He is thirsty.”

“I’m okay, really,” Casey says.

“No, Casey, you’re getting your hair done, so you’re thirsty,” Shana corrects him. “Mama always gets thirsty when she gets her hair done.”

“You can’t argue with that logic, Case,” Dave points out. 

“I’m thirsty,” Casey agrees, sounding defeated.

Ty shrugs and goes into the kitchen, which Dave assumes is because Xavier doesn’t look like he’s planning to actually follow Shana’s command. Ty returns holding a glass of water with a straw. “One glass of water, Shana,” he says seriously.

“Thank you, Uncle Ty,” Shana says. “Casey, take your water.”

Casey obediently takes the water from Ty, but when he moves to drink from the straw, Kendra grabs him by the head with both her hands. 

“Hold still you head!” she demands. 

“I don’t really understand what’s happening right now,” Casey says. He gives Dave a pleading look, but he doesn’t move his head. 

“I think you’re getting your hair done,” Dave says, though he knows it’s not particularly helpful. “I also think that you’ll be done with that as soon as the food is ready.”

“Which will be in about ten minutes,” Mercedes suddenly says from the doorway. “Ty, baby, your mama needs you in the kitchen.” She looks around the room and laughs. “Oh, my, Casey.”

“Boobear,” Casey whispers. Somehow he makes it sound like a curse. 

“He’s gonna look so nice for dinner,” Shana says. “Isn’t he, Kendra?”

Kendra nods solemnly. “I made a braids.”

“You two did a good job,” Mercedes agrees. “Casey, even the dog likes you!” She says it jokingly, but there’s a hint of something else in her voice, and Dave smiles at her in what he hopes is an encouraging manner. He’s never really sure that he’s ever managed to look truly encouraging. 

“I think I changed my mind, David,” Casey says, still without moving his head. “I think it’s better when somebody likes me so much they want to take my picture. That’s better than some other things people could do.”

Shana moves to the side where Kendra ‘braided’ Casey’s hair and untangles the knots before beginning to braid that section. “You look so beautiful!” Shana tells him. 

Dave laughs, but before he can get composed again, Ty’s mama announces loudly that it’s almost time to eat. “Girls! Come get washed up!”

The girls scramble off the sofa and towards the kitchen, and Casey looks immediately relieved, despite Thor the grey poodle still lying across his feet. Casey slumps down on the sofa and starts trying to undo the braids in his hair. 

Dave walks over and tries to undo some of the larger braids, and after just a few moments, Mercedes stands on the other side of Casey. “If we work fast,” Mercedes says wryly, “you might be unbraided before Thanksgiving dinner.”

“Thank you,” Casey says. “They’re terrifying! And small. And terrifying.”

“I think they take after their grandmother,” Mercedes whispers. “But I didn’t say that.”

Dave laughs. “I won’t say a word.”

“I didn’t hear anything,” Casey says. “Because of the braids.”

 

**Thursday, November 27th, 2014: Ty’s House, Alpharetta — Ty**

“Boobear, come get the nice dessert plates down for me,” Mama says. “You know your old mama can’t balance on the stepstool anymore.”

“You look like you could be my sister, Mama,” Ty protests, but he reaches up to bring down the dessert plates as commanded. “Everything smells so good.” 

“It’s the clean living. And thank you, Boobear. I don’t know that anybody but Dave and Casey will eat that bread stuffing, so you should have a bite so their feelings aren’t hurt.” 

“I think Special K just missed it,” Ty confides. “Apparently that’s how they make all their stuffing in Ohio.”

Mama shakes her head. “I can’t even imagine,” she sighs, then she frowns. “Does that Casey eat nothing but bread? He looks like he needs a stick of butter to keep from blowing away.”

“Nah, you should see him eat beef jerky!” Ty tells her. “He’s fine, Mama. I promise.”

“I can’t believe he didn’t want to go home for Thanksgiving,” Mama says. “Did he stay down here just for Dave?”

“Things… weren’t real great for Casey in Lima,” Ty says slowly and quietly. “He lived with Dave’s old football coach and her husband for his last two years of high school.”

“What happened to his family?” Mama asks, pulling out the cream and pouring it into a bowl to whip. “Hand me down the sugar, Boobear.”

Ty shakes his head. “His dad got thrown in jail and his mom split when that happened.” He looks over his shoulder and grabs the sugar. “I’ll tell you more later?”

Mama nods. “That poor baby,” she says. “You should bring him and Dave up here to see us more often. It’s always a pleasure to have Dave, and Casey was so sweet, playing with the girls like that.”

“Well, we could tell them you started celebrating all those obscure holidays,” Ty says. “National Pork Chop Day, or something.”

“That boy could use a porkchop,” Mama says. “Gravy, too. In fact, you make sure he gets the gravy boat twice at dinner.”

Ty laughs. “Yes, Mama.”

Mama kisses Ty on the cheek. “That’s my sweet Boobear. Now, go find that girlfriend of yours, so I can teach her how to make real whipped cream. No son of mine’s celebrating holidays with Cool Whip.”

 

**Friday, November 28th, 2014: North Avenue South dorm, Atlanta — Dave**

After a very light morning practice, Dave has had all of ‘Black Friday’ free, since he has no interest in sales or shopping. Ty, Coop, Casey, and Dave have some of the Thanksgiving leftovers for lunch, and afterwards, Dave and Casey accidentally fall asleep on the couch with Marigold. Once they wake up, Dave goes towards his bedroom, fooling around half-heartedly with one of his CAD programs, and Casey enters a moment later with a bowl of cranberry sauce. 

“Is that the stuff Coop brought back or the kind we had yesterday?” Dave asks.

“It’s the kind from the can,” Casey says. “The real kind.”

Dave blinks and shakes his head. “Isn’t that contradictory?”

“No, it’s the kind that tastes red.”

“Huh.” Dave shrugs. “Okay, then.”

“You want a bite?” Casey asks, as he climbs onto Dave’s bed and sits cross-legged in the center of it. 

“Nah, I’m good.”

“What are you working on?”

“Messing around with Archicad. I know I’ll get a new assignment first thing Monday morning. Well, 12:01 am on Monday, probably.”

“The tough life of an Arch student,” Casey says. “It’s like the mafia, David. Every time you think you’re out, they pull you back in.”

“Do I have to listen to ‘Hotel California’, too?” Dave asks. “Checking out but never leaving and all of that?”

“If you really want this night to seem like torture, I could sing it to you,” Casey offers. “Not until I’m done with my cranberry sauce, though.”

“You can wait until karaoke night. Danny keeps threatening to make us all go to karaoke night some day, but we’ve held him off this long.”

“It’s better that way, for everybody’s sake,” Casey says. He’s quiet for a minute, then he starts poking at his cranberry sauce before he says, “So, Ty’s nieces are cute.”

“I think Mercedes might be right, though. About them taking after Ty’s mama,” Dave says with a laugh. “But yeah. They are.”

“Do you think you want kids ever?” Casey says, his tone one of studied nonchalance as he examines the cranberry sauce closely. 

“I don’t know,” Dave admits, thinking for a minute. “It seems like life would be easier not to. That sounds awful, doesn’t it?” Dave winces. “But I think I’d rather be able to travel and not be tied down to school schedules or whatever. Plus it’d just be so complicated.”

“I don’t want to have kids,” Casey says softly. “Not ever.” He scowls at his cranberry sauce. “I couldn’t do that. So, if that’s something you think you ever _might_ want…”

Dave nods slowly. “I can understand that.” He pauses. “Like I said, I don’t think I do. And honestly, I never, ever pictured myself having kids. Ever.”

Casey seems to relax slightly. “That’s good. That we both feel like that, I mean. It’s good we both do.”

“Yeah.” Dave closes his laptop and moves to sit beside Casey on the bed. In just a few minutes, Ty’s head will pop around the corner of the door, and there will be loudness and pizza-ordering and some kind of movie to inspire them for the game against Georgia the next day, as chosen by Danny. It’s not the right moment, not quite, but Dave feels like if he stretched out his arm, he could almost feel it brush against his fingertips. So very, very close.


	21. ESPN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'Not yet' becomes 'now'.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Hiatus week" right? Well, we're lying liars who lie. Here's our Valentine's gift to you. 
> 
> **Warning: This chapter's rating is more a hard R/soft NC-17.**

**Saturday, November 29th, 2014: Bobby Dodd Stadium at Historic Grant Field, Atlanta — Dave**

Despite what the coaches and the alumni might say, a season that features winning less than half the games and not being invited to the bowls can be redeemed with a win over Georgia. The opposite is true, too: if the team managed to win every game but one and go to the playoffs, it would be an unsuccessful season if that lost game was the annual post-Thanksgiving bout with Georgia. 

Tech lost Dave’s first year when he was red-shirted, and they lost again in 2013, but 2014 has—outcome of the Georgia game pending—been a pretty good season for the Yellow Jackets, which is why the entire offense is on figurative pins and needles while the defense is on the field as the third quarter starts. Well, two members of the offense are literally pinned or needled, since one of the other guys in the offensive line is getting acupuncture and a second one is getting a bandage wrapped around his elbow. Dave’s not sure the bandage actually involves pins, but from the face he’s making, it could. 

The point is, in Dave’s mind, that Tech is ahead by fourteen points, 21–7, and defense, after two years of wandering about, seems to have finally discovered Big D. It makes Dave feel a little nostalgic for Lima itself for the first time since leaving, really, in that he suddenly wishes there were a few zombies around. 

The third quarter comes and goes without Georgia scoring, but Dave and the rest of the line keep their quarterback off his ass and Tech does score a fourth time. Georgia calls a timeout just a few seconds into the fourth quarter, which Tech uses as an opportunity for a pep talk and hydration. Georgia gets serious about the blitz after that, which means Dave has to step it up, but Tech scores another touchdown and a field goal, all unanswered. The last possession is Georgia’s though, which means that they’re going to play all sixty minutes, the crowd of students pressing to spill onto the field. 

Dave never has much success spotting Casey; possibly because Casey is never drunk, like some of the SWARM. With all the students yelling and counting down with the clock, he has no hope of picking Casey out, but he assumes Casey will find him. 

With a triumphant roar of ‘ONE’, the game ends, everyone pours onto the field, and Dave watches the most exuberant of the drunks start to climb the goal posts in preparation to pull them down. Dave gets jostled by the crowd after exchanging a hug with Ty and high-fiving Coop, and he stands still for a moment, just watching the crowd and taking in the moment. It’s safe to say that the game was probably one of the biggest Dave will ever play in, unless they win again in the next two years. 

The crowd parts a little bit and suddenly Dave spots Casey, making his way towards Dave. He has yellow paint on his face, _Braveheart_ –style, and Dave wonders how he isn’t cold, since he has no shirt on. Dave takes a few steps towards Casey, then stops, waiting for Casey to duck around the last few people separating them. Casey comes to a stop and holds Dave’s gaze, and for a brief few seconds, Dave can’t hear any details of what’s around them. He nods his head infinitesimally, and Casey springs forward, wrapping his arms around Dave’s neck and clinging to him. Casey grins at Dave, and Dave smiles back before their lips meet. Dave briefly feels like he and Casey _must_ be in a movie, and he wonders when they get the confetti falling on their heads. 

 

**Saturday, November 29th, 2014: Bobby Dodd Stadium at Historic Grant Field, Atlanta — Ty**

Ty doesn’t know why Georgia’s bothering, but they have the last possession and they aren’t just running out the clock. They must think having more than seven points on the board would make them look more respectable or something, but Ty’s pretty sure there’s no good way to lose this game, not when Tech’s score is thirty-eight. 

Predictably, though, Georgia doesn’t score, and Ty grabs Special K in a hug before bouncing around the field to hug or high-five as many of his teammates as possible. It was a good game, a damn good game, and Ty’s especially happy for the ten seniors, capping off their years at Tech with a win over Georgia at last. 

Ty sees Casey pass, out of the corner of his eye, and he turns towards Casey, watching Special K, too, who seems to have just spotted Casey. Ty grins at the look on Special K’s face and the way that Casey holds himself stock-still for a few seconds before he practically leaps onto Special K. Casey’s limbs are wrapped around Special K and the idiots are just staring at each other grinning for long enough that Ty considers whistling at them. Ty can’t tell which one of them finally moves; maybe it was both of them. In between one second and the next, though, they go from grinning and staring to kissing like it’s the end of _High School Musical 3_ or something. 

Ty grins and claps his hands a couple of times, then turns and sprints up to where Mercedes is standing near her seat. “Did you see that?” Ty says, still grinning. 

“See what?” Mercedes asks. “You won, yeah.”

“No, no! Special K and Casey!” Ty turns and points. “Finally!”

Mercedes starts to laugh sweetly. “Well, good for them,” she says, then stops laughing, still smiling. She takes Ty’s hand in hers and squeezes it. “Good for them. And yes,” she agrees. “Finally is right.”

 

**Saturday, November 29th, 2014: Bobby Dodd Stadium at Historic Grant Field, Atlanta — Casey**

Even after two years of regular attendance of McKinley football games and a full season with the SWARM, Casey still doesn’t really know or care about all the particulars of football. He cares that Tech is playing well, that they’re winning, and that David is putting the Georgia players on the ground like they don’t weigh anything. 

Even though it’s only 47 degrees out, Casey has his shirt off like the rest of the SWARM, and he has most of his face painted yellow like a fierce highland warrior. He and Bill made sure they both looked cool with their paint, instead of just smearing it all over their faces like most of the SWARM does. They spend most of the game screaming as loud as possible—or Casey does, at least—so by the time they’re counting the clock down at the end of the fourth quarter, Casey’s starting to lose his voice from the combination of the cold and the shouting. 

The timer hits zero, and Casey keeps his eyes fixed on David as the whole SWARM starts to move forward, pouring over the wall and onto the field. Once he’s on ground level, Casey can’t see David, not over the heads of the people around him, and he half runs and half hops down the field, trying to locate the last place he saw David. Everything around him is gold and excitement, but he keeps sprinting straight in the direction he thinks David should be, and hopes David still is. 

As he’s getting close to the players, though, Casey hits a wall of people and has to jump up to orient himself. He can see jerseys and a few helmets, but he can’t identify who is who through the crowd, so he keeps plowing forward, head slightly lowered so he can shoulder his way through the people. Just when he thinks there’s no way he’ll ever find David, the mass of people around him thins, and it’s almost like the whole crowd parts for a second, and there David is.

Casey can see that David sees him, and they both freeze, looking at each other, as people mill about all around them. He’s not sure what to do, exactly how to approach David in the middle of all the fans and the other players, and then their eyes meet, and David opens up his arms, and Casey knows that ‘now’ is _now_ , right now, and he rushes forward and leaps. David catches him and lifts him, and Casey’s legs go around David’s waist and his arms around David’s neck.

He’s there in David’s arms in the middle of a crowd of people, the two of them smiling at each other, and Casey just says, “Hi,” and then he kisses David like he’s never kissed anybody before. Nothing else around them, not the fans or the players or the screaming, matters. He’s here with David and it’s now, it’s finally now, and he’s never letting go of David again. 

 

**Saturday, November 29th, 2014: Bobby Dodd Stadium at Historic Grant Field, Atlanta — Dave**

Dave isn’t sure how he and Casey make it to the tunnel that leads to the exit. They go straight past the locker room entrance and end up on the sidewalk beside Techwood a lot more quickly than Dave would have anticipated, actually; the sidewalk is crowded but not overly so. Probably because most of the students who were at the game are still on the field celebrating. 

The two of them walk quickly through the crowd, arms around each other, and Dave isn’t sure if they were running or just walking, if he’s really honest. By the time they reach North Avenue, the crowd has thinned out even more, and as soon as the light changes, they sprint across, heading towards the dorm. 

The dorm is silent. The people who live there that aren’t on the football team all went home for Thanksgiving, Dave assumes, or are still in the middle of the field. The rest of the inhabitants are members of the football team, and the silence echoes around them as they pound up the stairs to the third floor and then hurry down the hall. 

Dave skids to a stop in front of 315 and looks at Casey. “Case?” Casey doesn’t respond, just grabs Dave’s jersey and pulls him down into another kiss, and it’s not until Dave pulls away slightly that he manages to get out “Key?”

Casey giggles and holds up the key. Dave grins and shakes his head as he takes it, unlocking the door and pushing it open. The door is almost closed when Dave pulls Casey back against him, kissing him again. Casey’s hands tug at Dave’s jersey, attempting to pull it over Dave’s head, but they’re still kissing, which means it’s stuck on Dave’s arms and pulled over Casey’s head a bit before Dave pulls back. 

“Um, off?” he mutters.

“Off,” Casey agrees. 

Dave manages to get the jersey off and drops it on the floor as Casey starts working on Dave’s pads almost frantically. Dave puts his hands over Casey’s as he starts to step backward, and eventually, the two of them manage to drop the pads off of Dave and onto the carpet. 

The two of them manage to walk down the hall, still kissing as Casey works on the long-sleeved undershirt they all wore because of the weather. Eventually it gets removed, too, and Dave turns towards his bedroom. They’re in the doorway when Dave pulls back slightly, running his hands over Casey’s cold chest. “You’re so cold still,” he mutters softly.

“You’re warm,” Casey says. Casey’s hands are on Dave’s chest, too, moving slowly, and Dave walks backwards again, towards the bed. “You’re— oh, your face is all yellow, David!”

“What?” It takes Dave a minute to realize what Casey means. “It’s— oh. Shower?”

Casey giggles. “We’re yellow! We have so much school spirit!”

Dave laughs and shakes his head, taking Casey’s hand and pulling him towards the bathroom. He gets the water warm—no matter what Casey says, he’s still cold—and then turns back around. Casey steps forward, his hands at the front of Dave’s pants before he makes a frustrated noise and Dave puts his hands over Casey’s again. The truth is that football pants and pads are unwieldy sometimes even for Dave, so when Casey pulls his hands away and puts them on his own belt, Dave works to loosen his pants and push all the various pieces down and off. 

Casey unfastens his belt and gets a little pinker as he does so, and Dave peels off the tall football socks, his eyes still on Casey. Casey hesitates slightly as he pushes down his jeans, then again before removing his boxers. Dave reaches for Casey’s hand before stepping into the tub, and Casey reaches out with his right hand to take Dave’s and follow him under the spray. 

Once they’re both standing in the tub, Dave puts his other hand on Casey’s cheek, tilting it up before kissing him again. Casey’s free hand is moving on Dave’s chest, and without ending the kiss, Dave slides them towards the tap until Casey is mostly under the warm water. The two of them continue kissing, and Dave releases Casey’s hand so he can run his hand over Casey’s shoulder and arm, trying to help him warm up. 

With one hand still on Casey’s face, Dave manages to grab the bar of soap and hand it to Casey, pulling back to rest their foreheads together with the water running over them. “Guess we should try to get the paint off,” he says finally.

“You should see you,” Casey says, laughing. “You have all my paint.”

“Nope,” Dave retorts. “There’s still plenty on you.” He grins. “Trust me on that one.”

“Well, here,” Casey says, lathering up the soap in his hands and scrubbing his hand over his face, eyes scrunched closed. He puts his face underneath the shower spray and then pulls back, blinking and shaking his head. “Did I get it?”

Dave nods after a moment’s examination. “Yep, looks like it.”

“Close your eyes, and I’ll get yours, too,” Casey says. Dave closes his eyes obediently, and then Casey’s hands are on Dave’s face, cleaning his cheeks, then his chin, and then his nose. There’s a brief kiss before Casey’s fingers, still soapy, run over Dave’s lips. “Okay, rinse,” Casey says, gently turning Dave’s face towards the water. Casey’s hands trace the same path, this time free of soap, and then Dave turns his head to the side, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. 

“Well?” Dave asks. “Am I Dave-colored again?”

“Hmm. Let me check.” Casey kisses both of Dave’s cheeks, then his chin and the tip of his nose before he drops down just enough to kiss Dave’s lips. “There,” he says, pulling back slightly. “I inspected you closely. You are not yellow.”

“Good to know,” Dave says, grinning. 

“I should check more. I might have missed something.” Casey runs his hands over Dave’s face again before moving them slowly down Dave’s body. First Dave’s neck and shoulders before one hand moves down each arm, then Casey’s hands come back to Dave’s chest and stomach. Casey pauses, looking at Dave with a small smile. Dave tugs Casey into another kiss, and Casey’s hand moves slowly lower, trailing to the side across Dave’s hip for a moment. Casey’s fingers almost, but not quite, tickle, and then Casey’s hand closes around Dave. Dave can feel both of them sigh into the kiss, and he puts his hand on the wall, his other arm loosely around Casey’s shoulders. 

Casey’s lips leave Dave’s, kissing down Dave’s throat and shoulders before traveling to Dave’s chest. Casey kisses Dave in several spots on his chest, his hand moving slowly as he does so. He works his way lower and then looks up at Dave. 

“David?”

Dave nods slightly, even though a small part of his brain says that isn’t an appropriate response to his name. Still, he knows what Casey is asking, and as he nods, Casey drops down onto his knees, and Dave becomes very, very glad that he already has one hand bracing himself against the wall. 

The water is still spraying warmly over both of them, turning their skin an ever-brightening shade of pink. Casey holds Dave’s gaze, making Dave take a raggedy breath. Casey’s hand is resting on Dave’s stomach, interrupting the downward flow of the rivulets. Dave focuses first on the way that the water is moving Casey’s hair, then on the freckles stark against Casey’s pale-but-pink skin, before he has to close his eyes. He had never realized the soap had any sort of scent, or how his skin notes the shifting air and water currents, his nerves on alert. 

Dave loses track of time as he stands there with his eyes closed, Casey in front of him, until he can feel his body tensing, a whine escaping from his mouth. “Shit, oh, shit, Case!” is the only warning Dave manages to give, his body shaking. He barely manages to stay braced on the wall as he comes, a final low whine escaping at the same time. He slumps against the wall, hearing that his breathing is fast without consciously feeling it yet. 

Casey kisses his way back up Dave’s stomach and chest, then Dave’s throat, before Dave pulls him into a kiss. Dave knows that if they weren’t in a dorm, the hot water would likely be long gone, which makes him wonder just how much time has passed. 

“We should go,” Dave says, pointing in the general direction of his bedroom.

“Yes,” Casey agrees happily. “We should do that.”

 

**Saturday, November 29th, 2014: North Avenue South dorm, Atlanta — Casey**

Casey never realized how long the hall was. He’d thought it was just a few feet, but it feels like it takes forever, too long, to get from the bathroom to David’s room. They keep kissing down the hallway, and into the room, and as the bedroom door closes behind them. Pink light filters through the blinds over David’s window, giving the room a warm glow. 

Somehow, they make it onto David’s bed, still kissing. Casey pulls David down on top of him, one hand on the back of David’s neck and the other around David and resting on his back. Casey’s hair is still wet, and despite David toweling them both off, they aren’t completely dry. David still has water droplets on his shoulder from the shower, and Casey brushes them off with his fingers while they kiss, David’s body pressing him into the bed. 

After a long while, Casey pulls back and smiles at David, and says, “Hi.”

David smiles back. “Hey.”

“Hi,” Casey says again, and starts to laugh. David shakes his head, laughing as well. “So,” Casey continues, trying to compose himself. “That was a very good game.”

“Uh.” David snorts. “Sure, Case. I think everybody liked it, anyway. Everybody who isn’t a Bulldog fan.”

“To hell with Georgia!” Casey says, and then he starts to giggle and can’t stop. He clings to David with his arms and his legs, and he keeps laughing almost hysterically. 

“Did I break you?” David asks wryly, which only makes Casey laugh harder. “I guess that’s a yes.”

“Yes!” Casey gasps between laughs. “You did!”

“Sorry,” David says solemnly, though he doesn’t look all that apologetic. 

“You should be,” Casey says. “It’s _all_ your fault.” He’s still giggling, but he kisses David again anyway, pulling him close. He puts one of his legs around David’s and arches up off the bed, still holding tightly to David with his arms. David kisses him back until Casey is breathless. Casey slides his foot along David’s calf and digs his toes into the muscle as he puts his hands in David’s hair. 

David pulls back, snorting again. “Ouch!” He sits up and grabs Casey’s foot, then leans over and kisses one toe. “Bad toe.”

Casey laughs and wiggles his toes. “They aren’t bad!”

“They’re very bad,” David argues, kissing the rest of the toes on that foot before moving to Casey’s other foot. 

“They can’t help it, David! They’re just toes!”

“Then I guess it’s _you_ who is trying to injure me,” David jokes, kissing the arch of the second foot. 

“I wouldn’t ever!” Casey protests, wiggling his foot. 

“Mmmhmm,” David replies. He kisses the tops of both of Casey’s feet, and Casey keeps wiggling his feet as David alternates between kissing his ankles, then his legs, then all around both his knees. While David is kissing Casey’s left knee, Casey pokes David in the sides with his toes and tickles him. “Told you they were bad!”

“No! You’re bad!” Casey counters, moving his toes against David’s sides again. 

“I’m not tickling anyone,” David says, and then he goes back to kissing the tops of Casey’s thighs, then each hip, pausing briefly, and then around his belly button. Casey keeps laughing, but it changes to more of a squeak each time David kisses his stomach, and he runs one hand through David’s hair. David moves to Casey’s left hand, kissing each finger and the back of Casey’s hand, and as he kisses up Casey’s arm, Casey can hear him muttering softly, too low to make out the words. When he reaches Casey’s left shoulder, he moves to the right side, starting with Casey’s fingers and working his way up, still talking too quietly for Casey to distinguish any words.

“Are you talking to my arms?” Casey asks.

“It’s a private conversation,” David looks up and explains. “They’ll tell you later if they want to.”

“Oh. Well, my apologies! Carry on,” Casey says magnanimously. 

David laughs and lowers his head to Casey’s collarbone, alternating between whispers and kisses. He kisses along Casey’s shoulders for a long time, and Casey finally stops laughing, just closing his eyes and sighing as he relaxes against the bed, feeling David’s lips on his skin and David’s body against his. He puts his leg over David’s again to pull him closer. David kisses across Casey’s shoulder and up one side of his neck, then the other; when David reaches the top, he lifts his head and kisses the end of Casey’s nose.

“Hi,” David says, still smiling. 

“Hi,” Casey answers. The light filtering into David's room from outside has changed from pink to red, and Casey realizes it's from the setting sun, which means more time has passed than he would have guessed. There’s no noise from the rest of the dorm; the only ambient noises Casey can hear are the sounds of his and David’s breathing and faint traffic noises from outside. “Did you finish your conversation with all the rest of me?” he asks.

David looks thoughtful for a moment, then shakes his head slowly. “No. I think you need to turn over. I know there was an important discussion that the back of your left knee and I needed to have.”

“Hmm. You might have to make an appointment for that,” Casey says. “I’ll check and get back to you about that later.” 

David shakes his head and rolls Casey over. He kisses the back of Casey’s left knee, moving his face against the sensitive skin there. The light rasp of David’s stubble makes Casey laugh and wiggle again. David zigzags kisses up the back of Casey’s thigh, then moves to the back of Casey’s right knee and starts over, kissing Casey to the upper thigh on that side. David plants a kiss at the base of Casey’s spine and then slowly works his way up Casey’s back, kissing each vertebrae.

Casey folds his arms under his head, turns his face to the side, and closes his eyes, concentrating on the feel of David’s lips on his skin, David’s warm breath on him, how David braces himself against Casey’s sides without really pressing any weight against him. Casey makes quiet contented noises as David continues up his spine and then his neck, brushing Casey’s hair to the sides so some of it falls across Casey’s face. 

David keeps kissing Casey’s neck and the backs of his shoulders, then kisses along the edge of Casey’s shoulder blade before kissing back and forth across the whole shoulder blade, then switching to the other side and doing it again. David moves his hands, running them down Casey’s mid and lower back, then down to his ass, resting them there while he continues kissing Casey’s shoulders, making little humming noises.

More than anything, Casey wants to tell David how perfect this all is, how happy he feels right now, but he’s afraid if he says it out loud he’ll jinx it somehow, or he’ll wake up and realize it isn’t true. Instead, he just murmurs, “David,” and tries to put everything into that one word, hoping David will hear it and know. David doesn’t stop kissing Casey’s back and shoulders, but his hands flex on Casey’s ass in response. 

David leans up a little, bringing one of his hands up to brush the hair out of Casey’s face so he can kiss the side of Casey’s cheek. Casey opens his eyes to watch David, smiling when David kisses the corner of his mouth. Casey rolls onto his back, still underneath David, and puts his arms around David’s neck, kissing him hard. He puts his legs around David’s again and lifts his hips off the bed, moving his body against David’s as they kiss. They’re both hard and pressing against each other, and David slides an arm under Casey and around his waist. 

David holds him close and they both move, rocking their bodies in a slow rhythm. Casey can’t stop himself from making noises, gasping and whimpering into David’s mouth as they kiss. David’s other hand moves back to Casey’s ass, squeezing a little. They pull away from the kiss to catch their breaths, foreheads resting together as Casey stares up into David’s eyes. 

“Hey, Casey,” David says quietly.

“Hi, David,” Casey replies. He tilts his face up and touches the tip of his nose to David’s, smiling at him, before kissing him again. Casey runs his fingertips down David’s back and up again. David lifts the arm under Casey, rolling him onto his side, and starts kissing the side of Casey’s neck. David’s lips and stubble tickle the side of Casey’s neck, and he tilts his head towards David involuntarily, laughing again. David’s mouth moves to the outside of Casey’s ear, kissing around the edge. 

The red glow from the window has faded and the shadows in the room are deepening. David raises himself enough to reach for the lamp attached to the bedframe and click it on, and it casts a low light across the bed.

“It turned into night,” Casey says, less as a commentary on the obvious and more because the time has passed much faster than it felt like it was passing. 

“Yeah,” David agrees, his voice husky. It gives Casey a little shiver, which makes David run his hand over Casey’s shoulder and upper arm a few times, like he’s trying to warm Casey up. David continues rolling Casey onto his stomach, his lips on Casey’s shoulder blades. David is almost humming, though the sound is such a deep vibration that Casey feels it almost as much as hears it, and Casey sighs quietly as he relaxes against the bed again.

David pauses in his kissing and puts one hand on Casey’s shoulder, rubbing a small circle. “Don’t plan a party after you graduate,” David says quietly. “I’m going to put you on a plane. Well, I’ll get on the plane, too. And we’re going to take a long trip. Don’t line up a job to start right away, either, come to think of it.” David laughs. “It’ll take a few months.”

“That sounds nice,” Casey says, closing his eyes. “Someplace warm?”

“I think we’ll start in Florida. The Keys. I didn’t mind Hemingway. We’ll spend a few days there, and when you go to swim, I’ll put sunscreen on your back.” David pauses. “You’ll get so many more freckles, anyway. After we’ve been in Key West, though, we should go to one of the Caribbean islands. Where was that boy you told me about from? Charles? The one dating Pranesh?”

“Trinidad, I think,” Casey says. “Or his family was. I don’t know for sure if he was.”

“We’ll go to Trinidad, then,” David says definitively. The hand on Casey’s shoulder slowly moves lower and lower, still making small circles. “Spend some time there, before we fly to California.”

“Mmm. California’s big. Which part will we go to?” Casey asks. 

“San Diego. Maybe go to the zoo there.” David’s hands rub tiny circles on Casey’s ass, slowly making the circles bigger. “Isn’t that one of the ones with the pandas?”

"Maybe," Casey says. "I like pandas." The little circles of movement feel good on Casey's skin, and he knows where all the touching is leading, though it doesn’t _have_ to go any further for him to be content. There’s time for that, time for everything. Still, Casey has wanted this with David for so long; he feels safer and more loved than he can ever remember feeling, and he _wants_ everything. 

“It’d be neat to see them, anyway,” David says quietly. “We could spend a week in San Diego. There’s some kind of museum there, too. Oh! And Sea World. Do you want.” He stops and laughs. “Do you want to sit in the splash zone?”

Casey laughs, too. “David, that sounds like sugar cookie talk.”

“Nope. Sugar cookie’s when it really might be innocent, it just _sounds_ bad. That was fully intentional.” 

“I told you that you were the bad one,” Casey says, jostling his leg a little. “And you were blaming everything on my toes!”

“Your toes made me do it,” David says blandly. His weight shifts on the bed, and he moves one of his hands off Casey to open and close a drawer. Casey can make a good guess as to what David’s looking for, but he doesn’t comment on it. He just smiles, his cheeks heating up.

“They’re bad sometimes,” Casey concedes. 

“Always. They just have you fooled the rest of the time, Case. Beware!”

“Mmhmm, they’re sneaky,” Casey agrees. He sighs softly as he feels David touching him, his fingers cool and slick. “Tell me about where we’ll go.”

“We’ll stay in California after that. We should find out if we like wine. And see the redwoods. Then we can fly towards Hawaii.” David’s voice is still quiet, and he moves one finger inside Casey so slowly. A little shiver passes through Casey. He grabs the blanket, holding tightly to the handful of fabric while the rest of his body relaxes. 

“I don’t want to surf,” Casey murmurs. 

“Snorkeling, then,” David responds. “And fresh coconuts. I’ve always wanted to do that thing with a fresh coconut, like they did on television. But we’ll go to Japan after that.”

“You’ll be a giant,” Casey says. He twists the fabric in his hand, unable to stop the soft sounds he’s making as David’s finger keeps moving inside him. 

“Maybe,” David says. “We should go to Vietnam after that. Or Thailand. Mmm.” David stops speaking for a moment. “Or both. Before we go to Sydney.”

“It’s— oh!” Casey gasps and his hand clenches and unclenches the blanket as David moves another finger inside him. “Winter. _Oh!_ There. Winter there.”

“Yeah, but I don’t think it gets as cold,” David says. “Then we should go to Egypt or Morocco. Or India, but not if it’s monsoon season or whatever. Isn’t it India that gets the monsoons?”

“Mmm. Monsoons. Yes.”

“And then there’s Europe.” David says it reverently, but it’s not clear whether it’s actually Europe or the way he’s touching Casey that’s inspiring that tone. 

“Yes. Europe,” Casey agrees. He realizes he’s really just repeating back words now, but it’s the best he can manage. 

“I think Europe might take a month,” David admits, now moving three fingers as Casey loses most of what’s left of his ability to form words. He hadn’t realized toe-curling was an actual thing, but it _is_ an actual thing, because his toes curl, and he makes indistinguishable sounds that are punctuated by “oh!”s. David continues after a brief pause. “Italy should get at least a week. The canals in Venice. I bet we could stay at a hotel and go everywhere by canal.”

“Yes,” Casey manages. “Yes.” His whole body is shaking, and he wants more. “David?” he asks pleadingly. 

“Yeah,” David answers firmly, and he opens and closes the drawer again. He moves his fingers out almost lazily, then puts his palm flat on Casey’s ass. “I know, Case.”

Of course David knows. David always knows. Casey knows the sound coming out of him probably sounds like begging, and it may as well be. The crinkling noise of the condom wrapper seems to go on a little longer than it should, then David shifts his weight on the bed. Casey feels David’s lips on his back in a quick kiss, before David moves into Casey slowly, slower than Casey needs him to move, even. 

David’s hand rests lightly on Casey’s lower back, his movement so gentle, and when David is finally inside Casey, they both breathe out together. There’s a moment of stillness, where everything is perfect, then David begins to move carefully. 

After just a moment, David stops. “No. I want to see you.” He pulls out and flips Casey over before moving into Casey again. “Better.” He leans forward, resting his forearms on either side of Casey’s shoulders, then grins. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Casey replies quietly, returning the smile. Casey tilts his face up, and David’s lips meet his right as he starts moving again. Casey puts his arms around David’s neck, using the leverage to bring himself flush against David’s chest, his legs wrapping high around David’s waist. Casey’s back barely brushes against the bed as they move together, Casey only vaguely aware of the noises he’s making, focusing on David’s low moans. 

As Casey starts to get close, he hears himself repeating David’s name over and over. David’s lips are just centimeters from Casey’s when he says, “Oh Casey,” in a low husky voice, sounding like he’s barely in control.

Casey keeps repeating David’s name as he starts to come, clinging to David and shaking. He keeps holding tightly onto David, still whispering his name. David keeps moving for another few minutes, and when he comes, he moans Casey’s name, drawing out the second syllable. David rests his forehead against Casey’s and they look into each other’s eyes, both breathing heavily.

After a minute or two, David scoops Casey up into his arms, discarding the condom in the trash can next to the bed before pulling back the covers and then tucking them both underneath them. Once they’re curled around each other, Casey rests his head against David’s chest, running his fingers through David’s chest hair. 

“I love you, David,” Casey says, letting his eyes close and his whole body relax into David’s arms. 

“Yeah,” David says very quietly. “I love you.”

 

**Sunday, November 30th, 2014: North Avenue South dorm, Atlanta — Dave**

When Dave starts to wake up to the feel of Casey kissing him, he doesn’t even open his eyes. He pulls Casey a little closer with the arm still around Casey’s waist and returns the kiss, though he can guess by the lack of light annoying his eyes that it’s still night. 

Dave isn’t really even fully awake, and he wonders how awake Casey is. Eventually, he does pull back a little bit, letting his eyes crack open. It’s dark in the room, and he smiles at Casey. “Mmm, midnight, you think? Or much later?”

“Hmm. Late. It’s late,” Casey says, curling against Dave again to kiss his neck. “It’s soooo late.”

“Oh, well. I’ll let you go back to sleep, then,” Dave offers.

“I woke _you_ up!” Casey protests. “Maybe I’ll let _you_ go back to sleep.”

“Nope, I’m awake now,” Dave explains. “So it has to be me letting you go back to sleep.” He runs his hands up and down Casey’s back, then flips onto his back and hauls Casey with him. “Last chance to sleep, Case.”

“Oh. Well, if it’s my last chance…” Casey says, pretending to try and roll off of Dave. Dave doesn’t move his arms, though, so Casey collapses dramatically against his chest. “I tried and failed!”

“It’s horrible,” Dave says, shaking his head sadly. “So sad, in fact.” He lifts his head to kiss Casey, still holding him firmly in place with his arms. Dave loses track of time as they kiss, pausing only for brief moments, until Dave knows that long minutes have passed. 

Dave presses his body up against Casey’s, then smiles at him again. “So.”

“Oh, did you want to go back to sleep now?” Casey asks innocently. 

“Nope. Not exactly.”

“Hmm. Did you want me to get you a drink of water?”

“Maybe in the morning,” Dave says. “Not now.”

“A snack?” Casey offers. “I have a mint in my jeans pocket, but I don’t actually know where my jeans are, so that isn’t helpful.”

Dave laughs. “No, not really.”

“Well. Hmm. I don’t know, David! I’m completely out of ideas,” Casey says, still using the overly innocent tone. He starts kissing the side of Dave’s neck again, pausing to say, “You should suggest something.”

“Me?” Dave says. “I’m boring. I can’t think of anything exciting. Maybe.” He pauses and grins to himself. “I guess if you’d be interested, maybe I could think of one thing.”

“Oh?” Casey asks, lifting his head and then propping himself up on Dave’s chest to look at him with a serious expression on his face. “Just one? Is it a good thing?”

“Just one good thing for now,” Dave answers. His voice drops a little. “I want you. The way you wanted me, earlier.”

“Mmm. Not just earlier,” Casey says. “Since forever. Pretty much since forever.” He kisses Dave and then pulls away slightly and says, “But yes. That would be a good thing.”

Dave nods and kisses Casey again, his hands still on Casey’s back. Casey runs his hands all over Dave, and Dave loosens his arms around Casey, one hand on the bed after a few moments. 

“Drawer, right?” Casey asks him softly. Dave nods. Dave listens to the drawer softly close and feels the mattress shift with Casey’s movements. After what feels like half an hour, at least, of Casey’s hands on him and in him, there’s a familiar crinkle before he can feel Casey pressing inside him. 

Dave knows he’s never going to play in or watch the Georgia Tech vs. Georgia game again without grinning like a fool. Probably not even be able to hear it mentioned without a small smile. Both of them had been waiting and hoping, trying to get timing and so many other things right. 

And maybe there are things they each could have done differently; Dave knows there are things that he could have changed. But none of it really seems to matter, not with Casey above him and inside him and things slotting into place perfectly, like they have been all semester. Dave doesn’t like what if’s, not really, but he has a yes this, and it’s so, so fantastic. 

Casey is repeating Dave’s name, over and over, “David, oh David,” sometimes many in a row and sometimes just once or twice before pausing, and his hand is around Dave, and Dave can feel himself just let go, coming with a low moan. Casey is still moving, calling out Dave’s name more loudly with each repetition, and he comes as well, curling onto Dave’s chest. 

Dave wraps his arms back around Casey’s back, closing his eyes and smiling happily. Casey rolls to the side and throws out the condom, then curls back against Dave. Dave nudges his head against the top of Casey’s. “Sleep more now, Case?”

“Mmm, okay. Sounds good,” Casey agrees. “You’re okay?”

Dave’s smile widens a little. “I’m good.”

 

**Sunday, November 30th, 2014: North Avenue South dorm, Atlanta — Casey**

Casey wakes up again in the steel-grey light of predawn to David running his hand over Casey’s hair and down his back. Casey wiggles in David’s arms until his face is near David’s, and he can kiss David softly. 

“Hi, sleepy,” Casey whispers. 

“Mmmhmm.” David laughs. “I’ve been awake.”

“It’s not really morning,” Casey says. “But I like it anyway.”

“Nah, not yet,” David agrees. “Still pretty early, especially for a Sunday.”

“Good. We can sleep more after,” Casey says, pulling David on top of him. 

The next time they wake up, the sun is pouring in through the cracks in the blinds and the whole room is a little too bright. Casey squints and pushes his face into David’s chest, whining, “Why is everything so daytimey?”

“Uh,” David groans. “I guess it’s morning now?”

“I think it’s afternoon now,” Casey says. “This room faces west.”

“Oh. Damn.” David yawns a little. “Guess you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right. I’m an expert on daytime,” Casey says. He smiles at David and props himself up on one elbow. “Hi.”

“Hey, Case.” David stretches. “We should— nah.”

“We should what?” Casey asks. 

“Actually know what time it is. But who cares?”

“I don’t care,” Casey agrees, then his stomach grumbles loudly. “Hmm. Maybe my stomach cares.”

“Maybe I should go get some food,” David says, making a face when Casey’s stomach grumbles. David climbs out of bed and pulls on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt before leaving the room. He comes back just a few moments later with three Clif bars, some bottled water, some Chinese leftovers, and their phones. 

David puts all of it down, and then hands Casey his phone. “Our phones are… exploding.”

“That’s weird,” Casey says. He takes his phone and looks at the number of voicemails and texts. “Um. I have seven voicemails and twenty-two texts. Did something happen?”

David’s studying his own phone with a perplexed expression. “I think…” he trails off and then his jaw drops. “Case?”

“Hmm?” Casey glances over at David’s phone. “What’s wrong? Is something wrong?”

“Oh, nothing’s wrong. But we _were_ on ESPN.”


	22. Late November/Early December

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath, the statement, the happily ever after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings: vague reference to prior self-harm**.
> 
> This final chapter is bittersweet for us. You've followed our Rambling Wrecks through over 200,000 words in this story alone, through a three year story arc that took over 18 months of real world time to share. The love you've shown our cast of characters, most of them original, makes it hard for us to bring this story to a close. Thank you all for reading and commenting along the way.
> 
> For more on the aftermath, read [Three Locker Rooms](http://archiveofourown.org/works/366550/chapters/595574).

**Saturday, November 29th, 2014: North Avenue South dorm, Atlanta — Ty**

Ty loses track of Special K and Casey pretty quickly, though he's pretty certain they left the stadium before almost anyone. Ty gives Mercedes a kiss and promises to meet her at dinner before he celebrates more with the team. When Ty gets to the locker room finally, a quick glance in Special K's locker confirms that Special K didn't stop there. Ty picks up Special K's stuff, including his phone, and heads towards the dorm, figuring that's the least he can do. 

By the time he gets to the dorm, though, he's already getting annoyed with Special K's phone, so he puts it on silent. The entire dorm building is quiet, and Ty doesn't immediately hear anything when he opens the door to their dorm. 

He doesn't even get the door open, though, before he realizes Special K's jersey is in the way. He kicks at it, only to run his foot into Special K's shoulder pads, and Ty shakes his head with a snort. There's a pair of shoes that Ty recognizes as belonging to Casey in the path through the kitchen to the living area, too.

Ty stands there for a minute, then decides to dump it all in one pile, including what he brought from Special K's locker. There's a sock and Special K's shoes in the hallway near Special K's door, so Ty makes a pile across from the door. He dumps his own stuff in his bedroom before stopping in the bathroom.

Where there are more clothes, including Casey's jeans, which must have had _his_ phone in them, because they are buzzing and chiming. Ty chuckles and fishes Casey's phone out of the jeans before he adds all the clothing in the bathroom to the pile in the hall. He turns Casey’s phone to silent, too, after deciding he probably ought not turn it completely off. The phone becomes the final thing on the pile before he heads back to the bathroom.

"Well, good for you two," Ty says, chuckling when he sees the large yellow handprint on the shower wall. He thinks about trying clean it up for a few seconds, then decides he’ll just leave it, and Ty goes back to the kitchen, grabbing a bottle of Gatorade, a Clif bar, and the last bit of pumpkin pie from the refrigerator. He is still leaning against the counter, polishing off the pie, when Danny walks in. 

"Did I see Special K and Casey?" Danny asks. 

"Uh-huh," Ty says, laughing. "You did. If you'd gotten here ten minutes ago, you would have seen all their clothes on the floor."

Danny grins. "Well, I'm happy for ’em."

"Might want to do like me," Ty offers. "Drop off your stuff, have a snack, and then we'll leave for awhile."

"That does sound like a plan," Danny says. "At least we have two things to go celebrate now!"

After the two of them have dinner with Mercedes and Brittany, they drive the ladies back to Mercedes’ dorm room, where Brittany is staying, and then head back to their own room. They run into Coop in the hallway outside the door, and Ty grins. “You been in there yet?”

“Naw, I was out with Todd and Whittaker having a couple of beers,” Coop says, eyeing the door suspiciously. “Why?” 

Ty laughs. “Let’s just say I had to make a laundry pile.”

“A laundry pile? Why’d you have to— oh sweet Jesus, seriously?” Coop asks. 

“It’s sweet. I think, anyway,” Danny says, unlocking the door and stepping into the kitchen. He stops, holding up a hand, then waves them in. “See, it’s fine!”

“Yeah, it’s something,” Ty agrees. He leans on the kitchen counter. “Least they aren’t on the couch or something.”

“Let’s not even think about that, alright?” Coop says, shaking his head. “I can live my whole life without that mental picture.”

Danny grins. “I bet.” He takes a can of Coke out of the refrigerator and opens it, hopping up on the counter. “But good for them, I guess.”

Before Ty can respond, his phone buzzes with a new text from Jones. _Turn on ESPN! Quick!_

“Huh. Jones says we should turn on ESPN,” Ty says, walking towards the living area and picking up the remote.

“Guess the team’s on there,” Danny offers. 

“Yeah, probably,” Ty agrees, turning on the television and flipping to ESPN. The last shots of a commercial disappear before the show comes back on. 

“And now we revisit the Georgia Tech win over the University of Georgia earlier today. This afternoon during the celebration, one of our camera operators caught the following shot.” The anchor disappears and suddenly there’s a shot of Special K and Casey, kissing right there on the field. After it plays, they replay it, then go back to the anchor. “Details are still sparse, though we did find out the player in question is named Tony Smith.”

Casey’s friend from the SWARM appears on the screen next. “Oh yeah, that guy? That’s Tony Smith.”

“Do you know what position he plays or any other details?” an off-screen reporter asks.

“Well, he’s a really big guy. I think he’s on the defensive line,” Casey’s friend says, straight-faced. 

“Were you surprised by this happening, right here on the field?”

“I sit with a bunch of guys in yellow wigs and body paint,” Casey’s friend says scathingly. “That kiss was not the weirdest thing I saw tonight.”

“I know he knows better!” Danny says gleefully, clapping his hand on his leg. “I bet he—” Danny cuts himself off. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Coop asks. 

“David!” is what they all hear, clearly coming from Special K’s room and equally clearly being Casey’s voice. The three of them all freeze, and Ty stares down at the remote. It’s repeated, though, getting a little higher-pitched each time, and none of them say a word.

“I don’t know where to look right now,” Danny says during a moment of silence, and Ty takes the opportunity to turn the volume up. 

“At the television,” Ty says. “Look, let’s see who’s playing in the Championship next week.”

 

**Sunday, November 30th, 2014: North Avenue South dorm, Atlanta — Casey**

“What do you mean we were on ESPN?” Casey says, leaning over to look at David’s phone. “Why would we be on television?”

“Well,” David says slowly. “There were cameras filming the game. And the immediate aftermath.”

“But, why would— oh!” Casey puts his hand over his mouth, his eyes widening. “But there were hundreds and hundreds of people,” he says behind his hand. “How did they see us in hundreds and hundreds of people?”

David shrugs. “I don’t know. Guess it was just one of those random things.” He’s still looking at his phone, shaking his head. “Also apparently, some places are still reporting my name is Tony Smith.”

Casey starts to laugh, then stops suddenly. “David, is this _bad_? Will you get in trouble?” He takes a deep breath and asks, “Are you going to be _safe_?”

“Huh?” David looks up, confused. “What do you mean?”

“That boy from LSU and the Aggies, remember?” Casey says. 

“Oh, yeah. It’s fine. That was the SEC and anyway, the whole team pretty much knew already. Most of the coaches too.”

Casey mentally tries to go through scenarios in which he pretends he isn’t David’s boyfriend for David’s safety, and whether or not he’d have to wear disguises, and he ends up just saying, “I could wear dark sunglasses!”

“If it means replacing those yellow ones, sure,” David agrees. “Man, there are so many texts. Want me to read you some of them?”

“My yellow sunglasses are great,” Casey grumbles to himself, then smiles at David. “Sure! We can take turns.”

“Dad wants to know why we didn’t tell him sooner.” David snorts. “Along with three emoticons. Why did I tell him about texting with those?”

Casey shakes his head and goes to the first text on his phone. “Uncle Monty says it’s terribly romantic and that he and Aunt Shannon DVR’d the game.” The next text is from Shannon, and Casey starts to laugh. “And Aunt Shannon says that wasn’t appropriate on-field behavior and next time I should wait until my boyfriend is off the field to jump on him.” It’s the first out-loud use of the word ‘boyfriend’, so Casey sneaks a look at David to see his expression.

David is laughing at the text. “Yeah, I bet she did. Let’s see. Evans says what translates to ‘way to go dudes’.”

“Yes, way to go us!” Casey agrees, leaning up to give David a kiss before reading his next text. “Oh, here’s one from Bill. ‘You and Tony’s secret is safe with me’. Hmm. Wonder what that’s about!”

“Next few are all from the team,” David reports. “Variations on way to go and assurances they didn’t tell the reporters anything.”

“There’s actual reporters wanting to report about it?” Casey asks. “Wow, that’s… wow!” 

The next text on Casey’s phone is from Miles, and just says _Yellow isn’t your color, Cherry._ Casey texts back _Shut up Miles it SO is!_ without saying anything, then he scrolls through the texts list again, shaking his head. “I have three from Rick. One says ‘was that you?’ and the next one says ‘hey that was you!’ and the last one says ‘that’s awesome!’”

“I got one from Hudson at like, 2:30 in the morning,” David says, looking baffled. “It just says ‘finally’ with some extra exclamation points.”

“Maybe he saw it online when he got up in the middle of the night to eat leftovers,” Casey suggests, because it sounds like as plausible a theory as anything else. “Oh, I have one from Kate.” He smiles at the text, but doesn’t read it out loud right away.

“What is it?” David asks. 

“She says ‘that’s THE BOY isn’t it?’ and then she sent me some less than threes,” Casey says, smiling even wider. “And she said, um.” He giggles. 

“Said what?”

“That I, um. Climbed you like a tree,” Casey giggles. “And that she bets that won’t be the only time that night.”

David snorts. “Thank you, Kate. Santana just says ‘way to gay’.”

“Hmm. Accurate, at least,” Casey says. “I think that Alicia and Uncle Monty should spend some time together. She thinks it’s romantic, too.”

“Oh, and Az says we should have just put an ad on YouTube.”

“Well, no more free coffee for him!” Casey says, and David laughs. 

“Enough texts,” David says after a minute, putting his phone aside. “C’mere.”

Casey puts his arms around David’s neck as he moves to straddle David’s legs. “This _is_ probably a more appropriate time to jump on my boyfriend.”

 

**Sunday, November 30th, 2014: North Avenue South dorm, Atlanta — Dave**

Dave orders a second burrito to go before they leave Moe’s and head back to the dorm, and when he opens the door, there’s a distinct difference from when they left – the television is on. 

“Hey,” Dave calls out. 

“Hey… _David_ ,” Coop calls back.

Dave rolls his eyes and puts the burrito in the refrigerator. 

“Hmm. That’s weird,” Casey says, shaking his head. 

“Oh, is that David?” Ty says loudly. 

“Hey Special K!” Danny yells. 

“That’s weird, too,” Casey says. “Not Danny. Just Ty and Coop.”

“Think they’re funny,” Dave says, shaking his head and standing in the doorway, facing the living area. “Haha.”

“I’m funny,” Coop protests. “You hear that, Ty? David doesn’t think we’re funny.”

“That’s just so sad,” Ty says, grinning. “So, so sad.”

“I mean, that’s his name, right?” Coop says. “It’s _David_.”

“It is. It was good to have a reminder,” Ty says.

“A frequent reminder, even,” Coop adds.

“Oh, are you two just talking about how loud Casey was shouting Special K’s name?” Danny asks.

Casey is slowly turning red, his eyes wide and horrified. “I… I wasn’t that loud,” Casey whispers to Dave. 

Dave winces. “Uh.”

Casey swivels his head towards Dave with a puzzled look on his face. “I wasn’t that loud,” he repeats. “Right?”

“You know, your voice really carries,” Coop says. “You think that’s from being in the SWARM?”

“ _Ohmigod_ ,” Casey whispers, putting both hands over his face. 

“Maybe we should go do that homework somewhere else,” Dave says to Casey.

“Shh,” Casey hisses from behind his hands. “I’m concentrating on trying to fall through the floor.”

“Oh, okay,” Dave says, nodding. “I’ll just go get our backpacks.”

“That sounds good,” Casey says, still behind his hands. 

Dave grabs their backpacks and walks back down the hall, handing Casey his before opening the door. “Later,” he calls back into the dorm.

As Casey follows Dave out, Ty and Coop yell together, “Bye David!”

Once the door closes behind them, Casey drops his hands from his face and asks, “Was I really that loud?”

“Uh.” Dave pushes the stairwell door open and grimaces. “Well. Yeah?”

“But… but I’m not that loud!” Casey protests. 

“Not… usually,” Dave settles on. 

“Oh. Is it, um. Alright?”

Dave probably looks a little confused. “Yeah, it’s fine with me.”

“Okay, then,” Casey says, taking Dave’s hand. “If it’s fine with you.”

 

**Monday, December 1st, 2014: Field dorm, Atlanta — Casey**

David kisses Casey awake before leaving for his workout to tell Casey that he’s cleared out the bottom drawer for him. Casey dozes for another half an hour, then gets up, showers, gets dressed, and sprints down the street to Field. When he gets up to his dorm room, he flings the door open to reveal Murph, who appears to be eating one of Casey’s Clif bars while using one of his pens, both while seated on Casey’s bed.

Casey throws both hands in the air with a cry of frustration, then he stalks over to his bed, where he pulls out his rolling duffel bag. He yanks open his dresser drawers and stuffs all his weather-appropriate clothes, along with all his socks, underwear, and pajamas, into the bag. Once the clothes he needs are all in his bag, he starts shoving his paperback novels into the remaining space. 

Murph watches with a confused expression while Casey storms around the room, putting more items into the bag. Once the duffel is full, Casey closes it and pointedly picks up the partially-empty box of Clif bars, which he tucks under his arm. With a final glare, Casey snatches the half-eaten Clif bar out of Murph’s hand and throws it into the trash can. Murph stares at him with his mouth gaping. 

“I’ll be back for my books,” Casey announces, then he turns and stomps out of the room, rolling his duffel bag behind him. 

As the door starts to close, Casey hears Murph calling out, “Hey, weren’t you on TV yesterday?” but Casey keeps on walking back to David’s dorm – or _their_ dorm, he should probably call it. It might seem like a fast jump to cohabitation, and it probably would be for other people, but Casey’s been living with one foot in David’s dorm since he first moved to Atlanta. Besides, if anyone asked, Casey might just tell them that it took him and David three years to move in together; it wouldn’t even be untrue.

 

 **Monday, December 1st, 2014: Georgia Tech campus, Atlanta — Dave**

Dave is in the middle of a lecture about stability when his mind suddenly flashes back to the scars on Casey's hips. 

It wasn't something he'd remarked on at the time, and he hadn't wanted to. He still doesn't really want to say anything, if he's honest, but he did notice them. He's seen the ones on Casey's arms before, of course, and intellectually, he knew they were there. That's not the same as seeing them in person, noticing how the skin puckers and dips, lines of scar tissue interrupting the freckles there. 

It makes him angry. He's not sure who it makes him angry at, even, but he knows he is angry. He hears a snap and glances down at his hand, realizing he's squeezed the pencil so tightly that it broke. Well, better the pencil than anything else, and at least he can still use the pencil. 

Still, he hates to think about Casey hurting himself, hurting and hiding it, fooling as many people as he could. It's over, thankfully, but it isn't a pleasant thought, and Dave pushes the thoughts to the back of his head. It's over, and they don't have to worry about it again. 

When the lecture's over, Dave swings his backpack onto his shoulders and heads towards where he's meeting Casey for lunch. He grins as he approaches, spotting Casey, and when he reaches him, he puts an arm around Casey and pulls him into an almost fierce kiss.

“Hey,” he says after that. “Ready for lunch?”

“Sure!” Casey says, with a huge smile. “I heard they have pie today!”

Dave laughs, walking in with his arm still around Casey’s shoulders. “Sounds good.”

 

**Tuesday, December 1st, 2014: Brittain Dining Hall, Atlanta — Casey**

Casey is in the middle of twirling his pasta to get it perfectly even on the fork when David leans towards him and whispers, “Case, just twirling it doesn’t count. You have to move the fork laterally, too.” 

“I’ll move _you_ laterally later,” Casey whispers back, but he does put the forkful of pasta into his mouth and make a great show of chewing it. 

“Uh-huh,” David agrees, taking a bite of his chicken. A moment later he groans, then hurriedly swallows. “Hasn’t ESPN gotten bored yet?”

Casey looks in the same direction as David and notices that the muted dining hall television is set to ESPN, and that the footage shot at the game is replaying on the screen. “Oh look!” Casey says. “I’m on TV. Again.” He starts twirling more pasta onto his fork. “I didn’t realize my hair looked that long.”

“Well, yeah,” Danny says, sounding surprised. “It looks that long ’cause it is that long.”

“Well, it doesn’t look that long from the front, and that’s the way I always see it,” Casey counters. “It is long, though… but I don’t think it’s really that color. The video makes it look weird. This whole video situation is suspect. David, we should complain.”

“Ask them to retouch it?” David says skeptically. “Maybe.” He puts down his fork and frowns at his phone as it starts to ring. “I don’t know that number, but it’s local.” He picks it up and answers. “Hello?”

“Maybe you won something!” Ty suggests, laughing, and David frowns at him. 

“Yes, this is— how did you get this number?” David asks suspiciously. Casey watches David scowling at the phone, and he’s about to offer to take it and tell whoever is on the other end to go away and never call again when his own phone starts ringing. It’s also an unfamiliar local number, but he answers it anyway.

“Hello?” Casey says.

“Yes, is this Casey O’Brien?” a woman asks politely.

“Um. May I ask who’s calling?”

“This is Katherine Hernandez with 11 Alive News,” she continues. “Do you prefer Casey or Mr. O’Brien?”

“Um.” Casey puts his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone and asks David, “How polite do I need to be when I tell them to stop calling me? Just, um. For example?”

“Kill ’em with kindness,” David whispers. “Maybe it’ll work.”

Casey nods and uncovers the phone. “I’m very sorry, but I’m afraid I just can’t talk to you right now. I have an, um, pressing engagement that’s… hmm, related to my academics.”

“Oh, that’s fine, I certainly understand. Could we perhaps make an appointment to speak via the phone tomorrow?”

“Um. Excuse me a moment, please.” Casey puts his hand back over the phone. “What’s a polite way to say I’m not ever, ever, ever going to let them interview me?”

“Here, let me,” Ty says, and he plucks the phone from Casey. “Hi, ma’am. I’m afraid I’m going to need to ask you not to call Casey again. He’s very invested in his personal privacy. Have a nice day.” With that, he hangs up, and hands the phone back to Casey. 

“Oh, that was great, Ty!” Casey says, impressed. “You’re good at that. You should consider it as a career option.”

Ty laughs. “Well, it’s easier when you aren’t the person they really want to talk to. Special K, you need a rescue, too?”

David rolls his eyes but shakes his head. “No, thank you,” he says into the phone. “Good bye.” He ends the call and sets his phone down with a sigh. “Like a dog with a bone.”

“Mine was 11 Alive. Who was yours?” Casey asks.

“WSB,” David answers. Before they can have any discussion about the calls, the phones both start to ring again, one after the other. Casey picks up his phone and immediately hands it to Ty.

“Hello, Georgia Tech Dining Answering Service,” Ty says with a grin. “How may I direct your call?” He pauses and then continues. “I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t direct personal or media inquiries to our students. Have a nice day.”

“Now answer David’s!” Casey says. 

“Naw, I’m getting this one,” Coop says, leaning across the table to answer the phone. “’Lo? No, it’s not.” He grins at David. “Well, you called me, so you tell me who it is you think you’re talking to.” Coop’s grin widens and he shakes his head. “Naw, naw, that’s not who this is. You sure you called the right number? Ma’am, I don’t know what number you called, that’s why I’m asking you.” He pulls the phone away from his ear and looks at it. “Seems like she got confused and hung up.”

“That’s a real tragedy,” David deadpans. 

“Who was on the phone? Um, _phones_ , I guess?” Casey asks.

“I think I had the 11 Alive lady,” Coop says. 

“I had the WSB dude,” Ty answers. “Everybody done?” 

David looks strangely at Ty. “Is there a time limit tonight?”

“Oh, no, just Coop and Danny and I, we were going to head out to Publix. Maybe a few other stores. We’ll be gone, what do you think Coop? Ninety minutes?”

“Yeah, at least ninety minutes. Maybe even a full hundred and twenty,” Coop says. “So, you know, that’s how long we’ll be gone, in case you needed to know that.”

Casey starts to laugh, but hides it by eating another twirled forkful of pasta. David glances at Casey, head shaking minutely, but he doesn’t say anything to Ty or Coop. 

Danny brightens and picks up his tray. “I’ll set that timer, guys!”

Casey sets down his fork and leans over to whisper to David, “I bet if we hurry to the dorm, we could use the whole hundred and twenty minutes.” David grins and then laughs, nodding, and the two of them stand up, heading for the tray return without looking back at the table, where the other three of them are all laughing. Casey takes David’s free hand in his, and after they dump their trays, they do in fact hurry back to the dorm and make use of the full one hundred and twenty minutes. 

 

 **Wednesday, December 3rd, 2014: North Avenue South dorm, Atlanta — Dave**

It feels strange for it to be a Wednesday evening and _not_ be attending the Pride Alliance meeting, but Dave has no desire to spend his twenty-first birthday being the unwitting star of the meeting, or subject to pleas about all the ‘good he can do’ now that he’s the only NCAA football player who is out. He’s already gotten an email to that effect, and there are a few stories being posted online about that, too. Since Casey didn’t mind missing the meeting either, they’re sitting in the living area, ostensibly doing homework. Dave’s actually sorting through his email, though, sending most of it straight to the trash. 

“Hey, Case?” Dave asks, snorting as he reads through one email. “Do you think I should sign this card in support?”

“Who are we supporting?” Casey asks, climbing halfway onto Dave under the guise of trying to look at the laptop. 

“Oh, some kid in Atlanta,” Dave says offhand. “Ever heard of a Dave Karofsky? The name sounds familiar somehow.”

“Hmm. It’s a really small world, David! Because I’m actually sleeping with a guy named Dave Karofsky,” Casey says, wiggling around in a feigned attempt to get comfortable. “Isn’t that a funny coincidence!”

“It’s terribly shocking,” Dave agrees, setting his laptop down to the side. “I think my signature might confuse them.”

“Hey, guys!” Ty suddenly says loudly. “Special K, what’d you think of that drill today?”

Casey makes a whiny noise and shifts again, and Dave shakes his head a little. “Brat,” he whispers, then turns towards Ty. “Seems a little late to be doing a new drill.”

“I know!” Ty agrees. “Even last week wouldn’t’ve been so bad.” He walks into the kitchen, still talking. “Now I know you know I’m not trying to interrupt anything, just like y’all never are trying to interrupt Mercedes and me.”

Casey wiggles again and leans back against Dave’s chest, turning his head to kiss Dave’s neck. “I’m not a brat,” Casey says, his lips on Dave’s neck.

“Sure,” Dave says quietly, then repeats it more loudly. “Sure. Sure, Ty. No one ever interrupts anyone around here.”

“We don’t interrupt Coop!” Ty says, reappearing with a slice of cold pizza. “He’d have to find a girl so he’d have something we could interrupt.”

Dave laughs with Casey, and Casey says, “Poor Coop.”

“Aww, don’t be too sad for him,” Ty says. “He’ll find someone eventually. Maybe it’s just the girls in Atlanta aren’t really his speed.”

“Yes, that’s nice,” Dave says, rolling his eyes at Ty. “Was there anything else?”

“I told you, I’m just having a conversation,” Ty protests. “Casey, what about you? Anything interesting happen to you today?”

Casey moves even more deliberately on Dave and gives Ty what can really only be described as a bratty grin. “Oh, I skipped Pride Alliance to have birthday sex with my boyfriend.”

“Oh, yeah?” Ty takes a bite of his pizza. “That working out for you, then?”

“Hmm. Well, the dorm acoustics being what they are, you’ll probably know the answer about the same time I do,” Casey says, conversationally. 

Dave isn’t sure if the appropriate response is to glare at Casey, at Ty, or somehow both of them simultaneously. He is pretty sure that ending the conversation is a preferred outcome. 

“So not too great so far, then,” Ty says to Casey, almost smirking.

“Okay, that’s it,” Dave announces, grabbing Casey and standing up with him. “Ty, I’d send you to your room, too, but I’ll just have to call Mercedes to scold you instead.”

“Uh-huh,” Ty says, laughing. “I’ll be waiting, then.”

“You should put on some headphones and listen to music while you wait,” Casey suggests. “With the volume up. That whole hearing damage thing is just a conspiracy theory.”

“And you,” Dave says, pushing open his door. “Shush.”

 

**Thursday, December 4th, 2014: Georgia Tech campus, Atlanta — Casey**

Now that Casey and David’s offseason clothes are in locked bins from IKEA and stored at Casey’s old dorm room, and the rest of Casey’s clothes and his books are all neatly put away in David’s room, he feels like he actually lives there. That means that instead of having to go out to hang out with Bill, Casey can just have Bill come up to the dorm, which is much better than having to go back out on campus. He was already approached by someone from Pride Alliance on the way to lab earlier in the day, and he’d just as soon not have to explain to anybody else today that no, David is _not_ going to give any kind of talk to any kind of meeting. 

Of course, that does leave Casey in something of a quandary, because he just got an email saying he has a package to pick up. 

“So, Bill. Do you want to help me retrieve a package?” Casey asks. 

“Is it large?” Bill asks. 

“I don’t know. It doesn’t say. It’s just…” Casey waves his hand in the direction of the door. “Out in the world. With the people and Pride Alliance and the media outlets.”

“Am I your human buffer zone?” Bill asks, sounding resigned. 

“Thank you, Bill!” Casey says, with an over-wide smile to demonstrate how appreciative he is.

“Having something useful to do might help assuage my bitterness over the dorm situation,” Bill says, shrugging. “So the football players have nice dorms and we get stuck in tiny rooms with people who take our things. That’s just the nature of the world.”

“Casey! Casey’s friend whose name I don’t remember, sorry!” Danny says brightly. “Where’re you going?”

“His name is Bill. We’re going to get a package,” Casey explains. 

“Yeah? Cool! I’ll come too,” Danny decides. 

“You will?” Bill asks.

“That’s great!” Casey says. “That way, if we have to explain to somebody that David needs to be left alone, you can help explain!”

“People are bothering Special K?” Danny asks, frowning. “That’s no good.”

“They think he should give talks and things,” Casey says, as they head out of the dorm and down the hall. “I just hope this all goes away soon, really. We’re actually very boring people and nobody should want to ask either of us any questions ever.”

Danny laughs. “That’d be a real short talk. They don’t know Special K.”

“Doesn’t it bother him that it went so public?” Bill asks. 

“It bothers him that people won’t leave him alone,” Casey says, shrugging. “I don’t think it bothers him that they know. At least, I hope it doesn’t.”

They finish walking to the student center, and Casey shows his student ID to get his package, which turns out to be an exceptionally large bouquet of flowers that are actually chocolate chip cookies. 

“That’s a real nice cookie bouquet!” Danny says enthusiastically. “Who’s it from?”

“I didn’t know cookies came in bouquet form,” Casey mutters to himself as he looks at the tag on the cookies. “Oh! It’s from Rick and Alicia. That’s very nice of them.”

“Why did they send you cookies?” Bill asks.

“They’re happy for me,” Casey says. “Well, for us. Me and David. They’re his cookie flowers, too.”

“Well, that’s better than flowers that’ll die,” Danny says, looking impressed.

“Yes, these are flowers we’ll eat. That’s much less morbid,” Casey agrees.

“You can eat dandelions, you know,” Danny mentions.

“Also rose petals and pansies,” Bill says. “Flowers are an underutilized food ingredient.”

“You people are _weird_ ,” Casey says, holding on to his giant flower bouquet. “I’m going back to the dorm to eat cookie flowers.”

 

 **Friday, December 5th, 2014: Architecture Building, Atlanta — Dave**

“You’re sure you want to sit through this?” Dave asks just after lunch, as he walks with Casey into the room where the architecture lecture is being held. 

“Of course I do,” Casey insists. “You like the lectures. They’re important to you. I can sit through one.”

“Okay, if you’re sure,” Dave says, settling into a seat. He’s pretty sure that if that were the real reason, Casey would have come to at least one lecture before; he’s also fairly confident that Casey’s real rationale has something to do with making sure no rogue members of the media pop up in the middle of the lecture. 

The lecture starts on time, and the speaker is a good one, talking about LEED certification and the different levels. It’s only ten minutes into the lecture when Dave realizes Casey hasn’t moved at all for a few minutes, and his head on Dave’s shoulder feels almost heavy. He looks to the side and stifles a laugh. 

Admittedly, Casey’s probably not been sleeping any more than Dave has for the past week, and Dave knows architecture and LEED certification aren’t really high on Casey’s interest list, so he’s not that surprised. It is a little bit funny, though, how Casey is lying on Dave, sleeping heavily in the midst of a room of architecture students who are all taking notes or listening raptly. 

Dave considers staying in the room even after the lecture is over, but he’s pretty sure there’s a class scheduled. It’s too bad; Casey’s sleeping well and no one yet has tried to find Dave in the architecture building, probably because football players aren’t supposed to major in architecture any more than they are expected to be gay and out. He might have to come out yet again, but this time as an architect. 

Dave is pretty sure in some places on campus, that would actually generate more interest. The only college campus that doesn’t seem all that interested in ‘Dave’s story’ is Georgia Tech itself, which suits Dave and Casey perfectly. 

When the lecture ends, Dave claps along with the other attendees, then gently shakes Casey. “Case? We have to leave now.”

“Hmm? I’m awake,” Casey mumbles. “Is it over already?”

“It’s over,” Dave confirms. “Do you have time to grab some coffee before class?”

“We should grab coffee in bed,” Casey suggests.

“Sadly, that’ll be quite awhile from now,” Dave says. “But we could probably go get two of those cookie flowers.”

“Okay,” Casey sighs. “Coffee and a cookie flower, then.”

 

**Saturday, December 6th, 2014: Georgia Dome, Atlanta — Casey**

Casey and Bill are two of the first people on the SWARM bus heading over to the Dome for the ACC Championship game against FSU, and Casey slouches down in his seat as the rest of the bus fills up. After everybody else files off at the Dome, Casey follows them to the SWARM seating area and tucks himself into the very end of a row. He kept his face paint low key today and he opted for the SWARM T-shirt over going shirtless, but despite that, when he glances up, the rest of the people in the row—except for Bill—are staring at him.

“What?” Casey asks, a hint of irritation creeping into his voice.

“You know the Dome’s different,” a guy halfway down the row says. “They don’t let us rush the field in the same way here.”

“Um. Okay?” Casey says, shrugging one shoulder as he exchanges a look with Bill, who also shrugs. 

“Maybe they want boyfriends, too?” Bill offers. 

“Remember! Everyone pick a player!” another guy yells. “I have dibs on Todd!”

Casey narrows his eyes. “Are they… seriously?”

“I think they are,” Bill agrees. 

“Then I guess you should claim Danny,” Casey says to Bill quietly. “Brittany probably wouldn’t mind if you jumped on him.” He raises his voice just enough to be overheard and adds, “But if anyone touches David, they’ll be sorry. I have a knife in my boot.”

The first guy and his neighbor give Casey a concerned glance, like they aren’t sure if they need to believe him or not. Casey gives them a wide smile before Bill points out, “You’re wearing Converse.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t have in a knife in my boot,” Casey says. “It just means my boots aren’t here.”

The score during the first half of the game is close, so Casey does lots of shouting and cheering, but apparently Tech has misplaced their big D again as the second half starts. At one point, a referee throws a flag and announces that Tech has to move back fifteen yards, which makes Casey so mad that he pulls off his shirt and throws it on the ground, stomping on it a few time while he screams at the referee. The game ends with Tech down by seventeen points, which means there’s no rushing the field, at least not by the SWARM or the other Tech fans.

“Dammit!” the loud guy from before the game says. “Now I’ll never get my chance with Todd!”

“Oh, I can introduce you, if you want,” Casey offers, straight-faced. 

“Yeah?” The guy grins. “Why not!”

“Better Todd than Coop, I guess,” Casey says to Bill. “Because I think that ship has sailed.”

 

**Sunday, December 7th, 2014: North Avenue South dorm, Atlanta — Ty**

“Are they still in there?” Ty hisses at Coop, nodding down the hall towards Special K’s room. 

“Yeah,” Coop says. “It’s quiet now, at least.”

“They woke me up _twice_ last night!” Ty says, setting the cake on the counter and starting to remove it from the box. 

“Shit, son. I even heard ’em once,” Coop says. “Kid’s got some volume on him for a little guy. At least I can’t hear Special K from across the dorm, ’cause that’d be _too damn much_.”

Ty just shakes his head. “I might switch beds with Marigold at this rate.”

“Marigold might be alright with that deal, anyway,” Coop says.

“Good.” Ty shakes his head. “Do we have enough unicorns and rainbows?”

“Hey, Britt said those were important,” Danny says, coming down the hall. “Want me to start taping them up?”

“Leave no wall uncovered,” Ty snickers. “You think this’ll wear ’em out enough that we can sleep tonight?”

“I think if the game didn’t wear ’em out, a party isn’t doing it,” Coop points out. “But keep hoping, Ty.”

“More like a prayer now,” Ty says. After Danny covers the walls and a little bit of the ceiling in unicorns and rainbows, the three of them go down the hall to let the rest of the team know it’s time to start. 

Ty knocks on the door where Whittaker and his dormmates are, waiting for someone to answer the door. Jones opens the door and gives Ty a nod.

“Is it time?” Jones asks.

“Yep. All of y’all ready?”

Jones glances behind him into his dorm room, then looks back at Ty. “Yeah. I think Todd’s gonna be late, though.”

“Yeah?” Ty nods slowly. “Good for him.” Ty continues down the hall, and eventually he, Coop, and Danny reconverge on the dorm, at least half the team waiting. 

“Okay, who lost a bet this week?” Danny asks. 

Coop grabs a redshirted freshman by the sleeve and announces, “Hey, Newbie’ll do it!”

Ty grins. “Good man.” He unlocks the door and points down the hall. “They’re in B.”

“Go with god, Newbie!” Coop calls out. 

The rest of them pile into the living area and the kitchen, waiting around while the others admire the decorations. “It’s a little like the unicorns threw up the rainbows,” Whittaker says, his voice a cross between admiring and horrified. 

“It is, isn’t it?” Ty says proudly. 

“I just hope they appreciate it,” Danny remarks.

“Of course they will, Danny,” Coop says. “It’s beautiful.”

Special K appears first, and he stops just inside the living area. “What the fuck?”

Casey’s voice comes from behind Special K, still sounding half-asleep. “David? Why are there so many people?”

“I feel like Brittany must’ve visited again,” Special K mutters. 

“No, she just gave me some ideas!” Danny chirps. 

“It’s your ‘Finally’ party,” Ty explains.

“They got you this weird-ass cake,” Jones says. “It’s got a really angry flying unicorn on it.”

“Again?” Special K asks. “You gotta see that, Case.” 

Casey steps around Special K, taking his hand and leaning against him. Casey obviously scrambled to find clothes, because he’s wearing one of Special K’s hoodies with his jeans and his hair is a mess. As they walk to look at the cake, Ty fights a snicker at the way Special K’s hair is sticking up in the back. 

“It’s a real nice cake,” Danny says. “It’s not that weird, Jones!”

“David, why is that unicorn so mad?” Casey asks Special K, still clinging to his arm. 

“Maybe he knows he’s not real?” Special K offers, then looks around at how crowded the dorm is. “You should’ve reserved a room at the Student Center at this rate.”

“How would we have gotten you there?” Ty says. “Nah, this is great. Right guys?”

“Uh, hey guys?” Coop asks, sounding concerned. “What’d you do with Newbie?”

“There’s a newbie?” Special K asks, then grins. “Nah, I think he wanted to rifle through Ty’s stuff.”

“Hey!” Ty protests.

“I’m here!” the freshman says, raising his hand. “I got stuck back in the corner.” 

“How long do we have to party before we can go back to bed?” Casey asks Special K.

“A long time,” Danny answers Casey. “It’s time to start the music!” Danny does in fact start the music going, and Ty starts cutting cake, being sure to reserve the angry face for Casey. After about twenty minutes, Ty notices Casey trying to get Special K back towards the bedroom. 

“Nope!” Ty says loudly, sliding in front of Casey. “Back to the party, Casey.”

“What?” Casey asks, in a put-on innocent voice that is not at all convincing.

“It’s a social occasion, which means you have to interact with people who aren’t Special K. With clothes on,” Ty says firmly. 

Casey gives Ty some kind of scowl–pout combo, then stands on his tiptoes to whisper something to Special K. Special K just shakes his head and doesn’t say a word, and Ty keeps looking at Casey, pointing behind him. Casey finally turns around with a dramatic huff. 

Not even ten minutes later, Ty spots Casey looking furtive, and he cups his hands to yell over the music at Coop. “Coop! Head ’em off!”

Coop nods and apparently intercepts them, because less than a minute later, Ty hears Casey utter an outraged-sounding, “Ty!”

Ty laughs and exchanges a fist-bump with Danny. Another fifteen minutes passes before he realizes he hasn’t seen Casey or Special K for a few minutes, so he stalks down the hall and bangs on Special K’s door. “This is not how you party!”

“This is how _I_ party!” Casey shouts back from inside the room. 

“Get out of there!” Ty says.

“I can’t!” Casey says. “I lost my clothes!”

“Oh, Casey.” Ty shakes his head. “It is SO on!” He shakes his head again, already trying to think of some amusing pranks, and walks back to the party. The door opens, and Todd walks in. 

“What did I miss?”

 

**Monday, December 8th, 2014: Arthur B. Edge, Jr., Intercollegiate Athletics Center, Atlanta — Dave**

By the time the ACC championship game ends on Saturday, Dave realizes that he’s going to have to make at least one official statement. By midday on Monday, he’s talked to the athletics staff and they’ve found two reporters to come video Dave reading a prepared statement. No questions, not a press conference, just reading a press release and then the athletic department will release the text of it as well. 

Casey insists on being there, but Dave insists that Casey shouldn’t be on camera, so Dave sits down at the front of the room and Casey stands to the side, hands on his hips. The prepared statement is short and doesn’t say anything revolutionary: yes, he’s gay; yes, he has a boyfriend; yes, the rest of his team and the coaching staff had already been aware of his orientation. It’s all apparently important, though, and they hook him up to a microphone and shine bright lights in his face before indicating that he can start reading it. 

It takes four tries to get a ‘clean’ recording, whatever that means. Dave doesn’t see why it has to come across perfectly, but that’s what they want, and everyone seems to think this should get the media to leave him alone, at least. Once he finishes, though, the lights don’t turn off, and one of the reporters turns to him with a too-bright smile. 

“So, Dave,” the reporter begins, even though Dave knows the reporter was told absolutely no questions, “now that you’re the first out gay NCAA football player, what are your plans?”

Dave knows they want some kind of answer about being the new posterboy for sports and gay athletes, but they’re going to be sorely disappointed. “Well,” he says slowly, refraining from rolling his eyes. He looks over at Casey instead, and Casey smiles back at him. “I think my boyfriend and I are going to walk across the interstate on North Avenue and get some milkshakes.”

“We can find a speck of dust and scribble down our life story” — The Refreshments

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Christmastime in the City](https://archiveofourown.org/works/628189) by [knittycat99](https://archiveofourown.org/users/knittycat99/pseuds/knittycat99)
  * [Most Important Rule](https://archiveofourown.org/works/634980) by [elemenoh_p](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elemenoh_p/pseuds/elemenoh_p)




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